Brazilian Army

The Brazilian Army (Exército Brasileiro) is the land arm of the Brazilian Armed Forces.

The Brazilian Armed Forces (Forças Armadas Brasileiras, ) is the unified military organization comprising the Brazilian Army (including the Brazilian Army Aviation), the Brazilian Navy (including the Brazilian Marine Corps and Brazilian Naval Aviation) and the Brazilian Air Force.

Aligned with the Western Bloc, during the time of military rule in Brazil from 1964 to 1985, it also had active participation in the Cold War, in Latin America and Southern Portuguese Africa, as well as taking part in UN peacekeeping missions worldwide since the late 1950s.

It was planned and executed by the most forefront commanders of the Brazilian Army and received the support of almost all high-ranking members of the military, along with conservative elements in society, like the Catholic Church and anti-communists civil movements among the Brazilian middle and upper classes.

In July 1944, after almost two years of public pressure and negotiations with US authorities, an expeditionary force was sent to join the Allied forces in the Italian campaign.

The Brazilian Expeditionary Force (Força Expedicionária Brasileira, FEB) consisted of about 25,700 men arranged by the army and air force to fight alongside the Allied forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War II.

From Geisel period, the third Brazilian dictatorship sought greater independence in its foreign policy, leaving of automatically align with the US interests, especially in relation to sub-Saharan Africa and Middle East.

Ernesto Beckmann Geisel (, ; August 3, 1907 – September 12, 1996) was a Brazilian Army officer and politician, who was President of Brazil from 1974 to 1979, during the Brazilian military government.

The army's contribution was composed of a full Infantry Division (about 25,000 men, replacements included), commanded by Major-General (later Marshal) João Baptista Mascarenhas de Morais, which in Italy was attached to the US IV Corps at the US Fifth Army, into the 15th Allied Army Group.

General de Brigada (Brigade General) is the lowest rank of general officers in the Brazilian Army.

With the resignation of Jânio Quadros, who succeeded Kubitschek, a new institutional crisis opens up, exacerbated by the Cold War context, and in late March-early April 1964, the Brazilian Army (then led by General Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco) seized power through its third coup d'état, inaugurating another dictatorial period, which lasted 21 years.

Castelo Branco joined the Brazilian Army at Rio Pardo Military School in Rio Grande do Sul.

In 2010, during the Rio de Janeiro Security Crisis, the Brazilian Army sent 800 paratroopers to combat drug trafficking in Rio de Janeiro.

In response to the attacks, the local police forces with the aid of the Brazilian Army and Marine Corps initiated a large scale offensive against two of the largest drug trafficking headquarters in the city, located in the Vila Cruzeiro and the neighboring Complexo do Alemão.

The general assumed command of the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State, the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro State, and the Military Firefighters Corps and responded directly to the President of the Republic in his duty as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces by the Constitution.

The Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State (Polícia Militar do Estado do Rio de Janeiro) (PMERJ) like other military polices in Brazil is a reserve and ancillary force of the Brazilian Army, and part of the System of Public Security and Brazilian Social Protection.

Domestically, besides having faced several rebellions throughout these two centuries, with support of local political and economic elites, it also ended the monarchy and imposed on the rest of society its political views and economic development projects during the periods that it ruled the country: 1889–94, 1930–50 (First Vargas period and Dutra years), and 1964–85. With the defeat of right wing' totalitarian regimes in World War II, Vargas is removed by the head of the army, General Dutra, who in 1946 won the Election dispute against Air Marshall, Eduardo Gomes.

With, although modest, Brazil's participation in the war on the Allied side, and the growing pressure from civil society for democratization of the country, Dutra formally adhered to the idea of the end of the regime that started in 1930, participating in the following deposition of Getúlio Vargas in October 1945, continuing the interventionist doctrine, practiced at the time by the Brazilian army.

On May 1, 1865, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina signed the Triple Alliance to defend themselves against aggression from Paraguay, which was ruled by the dictator Francisco López.

It consists of the Brazilian Army (including the Army Aviation Command), the Brazilian Navy (including the Marine Corps and Naval Aviation), and the Brazilian Air Force.

The general assumed command of the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State, the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro State, and the Military Firefighters Corps and responded directly to the President of the Republic in his duty as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces by the Constitution.

Since 1915, it has been a Military reserve force and an auxiliary force of the Brazilian Army.

The Battle of Jenipapo was fought near the river Jenipapo in the then province of Piauí, on 13 March 1823, between the Brazilian Army and the Portuguese Army during the Brazilian War of Independence.

The army's contribution was composed of a full Infantry Division (about 25,000 men, replacements included), commanded by Major-General (later Marshal) João Baptista Mascarenhas de Morais, which in Italy was attached to the US IV Corps at the US Fifth Army, into the 15th Allied Army Group.

The Brazilian Army currently has four army divisions: the 1st Army Division based in Rio de Janeiro and subordinated to the Eastern Military Command, the 2nd Army Division, based in São Paulo and subordinated to the Military Command of the Southeast and 3rd Army Division, based in Santa Maria - RS and the 5th Army Division based in Curitiba - PR, the latter two being linked to the Southern Military Command.

Although the Brazilian Army was created during the process of the independence of Brazil from Portugal, in 1822, with the units of the Portuguese Army in Brazil that have remained loyal to Prince Dom Pedro, its origins can date back to Land Forces used by Portuguese in the colonial wars against French and Dutch, fought in 16th and 17th centuries.

This war assumed a character of a kind of a civil war, with the forces loyal to the Portuguese Government fighting the separatist army whose leaders and officers were also mostly Portuguese.

On the morning of December 6, 1868, Marshal of the Brazilian Army, Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Marquis (later Duke) of Caxias, moved with 16,999 infantrymen, 926 cavalrymen and 742 artillerymen, to take Villeta, a Paraguayan city, as a plan to make further attacks on the Paraguayan Army rear.

The Siege of Salvador occurred during the Brazilian War of Independence, during which the Brazilian Army, under Pierre Labatut, attempted to capture the city of Salvador in Bahia from its Portuguese Army defenders.

Because the only entry into the regular officer corps is the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras – Military Academy of the Black Needles (AMAN), its records provide an accurate picture of the officer corps.

The Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras (AMAN, Military Academy of Agulhas Negras - named after the Agulhas Negras summit) is the biggest among several schools of formation of combatant officers of the Brazilian Army.

The urban guerrillas were active in Brazil between 1968 and 1971 while in the rural areas the 2 main movements subdued by the Army were respectively, one in the region where are today the Caparaó National Park (1967) and the other one in the region of Araguaya River (1972–74).

The guerrilla was countered by the Brazilian Army from 1972, when several of its members had already been established in the region for at least six years.

The Southern Military Command (Comando Militar do Sul or CMS) is one of eight Military Commands of the Brazilian Army.

In principle, the Brazilian Constitution designates the 400,000-strong Brazilian Military Police as a reserve force of the Army, although in practice they remain separate entities.

All state Military Police and Military Firefighters Corps are classed as reserve troops and ancillary forces of the Brazilian Army.

The Northeastern Military Command is one of eight Military Commands of the Brazilian Army.

After a two-year series of continuous sundry skirmishes in the Banda Oriental (present-day Uruguay and Rio Grande do Sul) and along the border of this country with Brazil, the advancing Argentine Army (including Orientals) engaged in combat with the Brazilian Army.

With the defeat of right wing' totalitarian regimes in World War II, Vargas is removed by the head of the army, General Dutra, who in 1946 won the Election dispute against Air Marshall, Eduardo Gomes.

However, its highest rank is marechal-do-ar, the equivalent to a Brazilian Army marshal.

The Western Military Command is one of eight Military Commands of the Brazilian Army.

It is subject to the Planalto Military Command, with headquarters in Brasilia.

The Planalto Military Command is one of eight Military Commands of the Brazilian Army.