and all have been given in this article. That said, some provisions of the Treaty were obvious at the time or easy to guess (such as that there was some sort of alliance against López) and others were less so (such as the precise extent to which Argentina's territorial claims were to be vindicated). Confusion arose because all of the clauses were closed to public inspection, which led to rumours. Publication According to Thompson, the main provisions were quickly leaked to the Buenos Aires press. According to Professor Thomas L. Whigham, the detailed text was published as follows. The British chargé d'affaires in Montevideo, William Garrow Lettsom, had asked Uruguayan Foreign Minister Carlos de Castro directly whether the allies planned to partition Paraguay "like some South American Poland". With the intention of soothing him, de Castro gave him, in confidence, a complete copy of the treaty. However, Lettsom was not satisfied and wondered if confiscation of part of its territory was really better than a general annexation. He decided to send a copy to Lord Russell. The British government had for long been opposed to any sort of territorial concessions in Uruguay and, by extension, anywhere in the Plate region: The text of the Treaty seemed to violate long-established diplomacy in the region. The British government decided to ignore Lettsom's promises of discretion, and hastened to publish the entire treaty... The treaty was published in March 1866 and denounced in the London newspapers. The news reached South America some weeks later and created an avalanche of adverse publicity. Bolivia and Peru protested against the treaty, and Chile seemed inclined to do the same. On the other hand, when the treaty was published in a Paraguayan weekly, many people were convinced that López was right to wage war with the Allies and that "Paraguay was compelled to fight for her very existence." Thompson noted that "it gave me a further zest to fight for Paraguay, as I believed, from the terms of the Protocol, that she must either fight or be absorbed." Aftermath Allies It took nearly a year to expel Paraguayan troops from allied territory. In April 1866 the allies invaded Paraguay. Eventually, after four years of warfare — in most of which they were held up by the Fortress of Humaitá — they overthrew the government of López, who was killed in battle. As required by the Protocol, they