Domingo Antonio Ortiz

Domingo Antonio Ortiz Mereles (1832 – 1889) was a Paraguayan naval officer and politician. He served with distinction in the Triple Alliance War, and after the conflict participated in various governments through the 1870s and 1880s.

Biography Early life and the Triple Alliance War Ortiz was born in 1832 in Caraguatay, located less than 100 kilometers away from the capital Asunción. He joined the Paraguayan Army at a young age, trained as a gunner under a Brazilian military mission, and then joined the Paraguayan Navy in 1853.

When the Triple Alliance War started, he was already an officer. In 1865 he was made a Knight of the National Order of Merit. He fought in the Battle of Riachuelo as commander of the steamer , with 5 cannons, the first to have been built in Paraguay; he also fought in Curupayty as a gunner for the east battery, and for his bravery in this action was promoted to Officer in the National Order of Merit, and in the Battle of Itapirú, also as gunner, where he was promoted to lieutenant.

In 1868, he was promoted to Capitán de Corbeta (corvette captain), a rank which in today's Paraguayan Navy is equivalent to Lieutenant Commander. In 1867 he was named commander of the artillery in the , but when the Angostura Fortress fell in 1868, he was taken prisoner together with the rest of its garrison, and thus survived the deadly last few years of the war.

The wide variety of positions he assumed in the post-war era are in great part a result of the small amount of able men of the political elite in Asunción (a consequence of the terrible loss of life in Paraguay during the Triple Alliance War). In particular many ex-military men were called upon to perform duties in the judiciary and in the country's general administration, even if they had no previous experience in these fields.