Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 212 - The War of the Triple Alliance Part 3: Send in the Canoes!

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

Part 3/5 Suicide canoes, it turned out, would not be the wonder weapon Solano Lopez thought they would be. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Produced by Nate Bethea and Sarah Sahim Sources: Leuchars, Chris. To the Bitter End: Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance Kolinski, Charles. Independence or Death: The story of the Paraguayan War Whigham, Thomas L. The Road to Armageddon: Paraguay versus the Triple Alliance, 1866–70. warhistorymilitarypodcast

hello and welcome to another episode the lines of my donkeys podcast i'm joe and with me is liam hello liam hi joe how are you doing bud bud? Oh, I'm doing good, dude. I heard you have a ball hernia. So I might have a hernia. In your balls, from what I understand. It's not my balls. My balls are fine. It's in your balls. The people are clamoring to know about the health of my balls. Joe can save the balls. You know, and I really hate saying things on this show show mostly because every time i said like i think i have blank it ended up being true he's got plague get him i've got the fucking black death i was recording with francis during our series about the polar bear

expedition when i was in armenia which required me to get up at like 6 a.m and record right the time difference and i always kind of felt off you know the 6 a.m thing mostly but like one morning I felt like I was fucking dead I'm like you know what I think I have COVID and then I had COVID now I think I might have a hernia and I have a

fucking hernia I don't know if it is I don't don't like going to the doctor as any good American do you have a friend that's a doctor so I might have to tap him for some help I don't like going to the doctor as any good American. I do have a friend that's a doctor, so I might have to tap him for some help. So to speak. I'll tap him, if you will. Yeah, I'm going to do the traditional Kasabian family remedy of just punching the hernia back into place. Oh, yeah.

So actually, that's only partially a joke. I was a lion led by donkeys. donkeys expanded cock and ball torture universe when i was a kid when my dad my dad had an umbilical hernia so like out of his belly button um because he worked at a ford plant he was doing like heavy manual labor because he wasn't smart enough to have one the chill assembly line jobs uh like robots and shit he's a fucking dumbass i mean he was my dad and he would literally like to relieve pain he'd have us like step on it i'm gonna throw up yeah it was disgusting i and i was like i vividly remember like this doesn't seem like i'm like nine years old like this doesn't seem like I'm like nine years old. Like, this doesn't seem like medicine to me, dad. So now that we're talking about health care, that would be in place in what we're talking about today, which is the Triple Alliance Part Three.

We can, I guess it's a horrible segue from hernias to Paraguay. So when we left off last time, the War of the Triple Alliance had truly begun. And while the allies were trying to organize their men into disease-filled starvation camps, Solano Lopez went on the attack, invading the Brazilian providence of Rio Grande do Sol. Yes, I'm sure I pronounced that correctly. Well, you said Brazilian providence. Province. Damn it. Whatever.

Come at me. Don. Come at me. Don't come at me. Please leave me alone. Do what? Do you have a hernia? I have a hernia in my brain as well. Nope, that's a tumor. I didn't give you the TBI.

It's actually just like an inoperable brain tumor, but it only affects the speech portion of my brain while I'm podcasting. So you can't actually make fun of me. That's your Broca's area. That's what that's called. When I say Paraguay went on the attack, I mean, kind of. Paraguay and General Estagriba went across the Uruguay

River, and he had to sit and wait for a month as he had been ordered to wait for General Robles, who had went and got himself lost while trying to find his way there. Yeah, I mean, like, as someone who didn't do great in land navigation,

Shipping over your own dick trying to invade a country. Like, I didn't do great in land navigation, but I didn't get so lost that I just vanished for a month. To be completely fair here, nobody gave Robles a map. So, like, I'll give

him 50% blame for this. When you send a military formation to invade a country, you're gonna want, I don't know, bare minimum, some sketches done. You know? Like, oh, where am I? Oh, just go that way until you find a river. Big river across.

Yeah. Of course, since this took a month, Esther Gariba was just like, fuck this guy. I'm going without him. And then if things couldn't get any more messed up, Robles decided, well, I can't find where I'm supposed to go. I'm already over here. I'm in enemy territory.

I might as well just start raiding towns, right? Like they're they're right here a party hardy method yes yes he ended up just raiding towns without orders uh which ended up i mean this kind of helps their overall mission but he was supposed to support esta gribe and more importantly if there's one guy i and i i think i've i've pointed this out before but if i haven't i'll do it again if there's one guy you really don't want to deviate from the letter of of orders are it's it's solano lopez he believed any slight deviation from orders especially when it comes to you know failing to link up with the guy you're supposed to link up with as like suspicious like

this guy isn't listening to me he must be disloyal he's a traitor oh no so that's exactly what happened uh he assumed he was a traitor because he was deviating from the plan why else wouldn't he be listening to the ingenious solano lopez right couldn't be that like you didn't give him a map or something he just doesn't know where he is four fellas lost we've all been there also did i ever tell you about the uh hardies i used to manage in myrtle beach like the burger place yeah we called it party hardies because of all the drugs we were moving through there ever tell me about that i've lived in places where hardies have been because it's like uh they're not up north if i remember they might be now well depends on your definition of north they are in pennsylvania but like you're north okay so i don't remember them being in

michigan uh i do remember them being in Michigan. I do remember seeing them in Kentucky when I was stationed there. And I will say if I was legally, well, I guess you're never legally allowed to do drugs. But if I didn't have a job, they required to be routinely drug tested. That's where I would have gone to buy drugs. Do you ever go to be Playboy number two in Springfield, Kentucky, the greatest restaurant to ever exist on the face of the planet i don't know if i ever went to springfield kentucky three dollar margs the size of your head dude oh yeah that would fuck me up good yeah it was it was like a moist town and that they had like controlled liquor licenses and you're not like

that description or whatever well it's wet and dry it's moist damp it's a damp town damp moist whatever it just makes me think that everybody within it is slightly wet like like you know that bit from always sunny where frank covers himself with hand sanitizer and he's just slithering every member of springfield kentucky is just slithering down the street or like when trump was president he was just kind of moist he was a sweaty boy he was a sweaty boy like i'm a sweaty boy too but but i'm not president of the united states yeah i mean if i was president of the united states and i had a whole bunch of actually i have been in a situation though i still was not president of the United States, where I had spotlights

and stuff put on me for a reading at a bookstore. And they weren't even professional spotlights, right? They were just lights, I guess. But I was sweating quite profusely. We did the live show for WTYP. I was cooking up there, dude. I was just like,

thank God I wore this in bead jersey, because I am fucking cooking. Also, just for the record, I stole the Party Hardys joke from American Dad. So don't think you've one-upped me in the comments. You should have just owned it. You gotta own that shit. You insist that they stole it from you. We got in trouble for that.

Eh. Shut the fuck up. They can cite this dick, Joe. And they can cite this dick joe and they can cite your ball hernia it's not a ball hernia joe has a ball hernia he's just very embarrassed we all feel bad for him i wish a hernia in all of your balls instead of a pox

in all of your houses listen my balls are fucking dude it's not even that hot out and i'm just sitting in my own soup so like it's not gonna get significantly worse next time i get covid i'm going to in my own soup so like it's not going to get significantly worse next time I get COVID I'm going to cough into an envelope and mail it to you

and I'll clone you and I'll have baby Joe Kasabian hopefully this one is not a Lions fan hopefully I mean that is the meanest thing my dad ever did is make me a Lions fan sorry about your balls

you and many other people That's the meanest thing my dad ever did was make me a Lions fan. Sorry about your balls. You and many other people. He's fucking around in the jungle, sucking dick, being lost. At this point, Lopez recalled Robles. How could he recall him? He doesn't know where he is. Well, he started figuring out where he was when was setting everything on fire he's like oh that makes sense because my dude's a one one one guy wrecking machine yeah saw something shiny he was arrested as soon as he got back as was his second command and he was brought up on several

charges and robles had worked with solano lopez long enough to know that i'm fucked. I'm not even going to bother to defend myself. I know where this is going. He signed his own confession, which is effectively his own death warrant, because he knows where this is going, because he's charged with treason. Not a charge you escape from often.

He signed the confession with like a flourish, loudly said, goodbye pen, and then like threw the pen off into the distance, lit a cigar, unaided, walked out to the firing squad and smoked on that shit while he got shot. What else is there to do, man? I mean, he absolutely went out like a king, though he does have competition, namely his second in command now he is a guy that was known for just being massive just like a bit like a big fucking guy uh he was rumored to wrestle alligators for fun i don't know how true that is it might be anecdotal but he's a big like kind of guy my kind of guy yeah i want to believe that this guy like gave alligators the stone cold stun or

whatever on his whenever he was on leave it took five volleys from the firing squad to fucking kill him uh which either he is the toughest guy to ever walk the earth or these guys cannot fucking shoot despite the fact they are 10 feet away and after each volley he picked himself up back to his feet and was like alright bro let's go again haha flipping them off unfortunately for him they did not bring enough rounds for six volleys because

they were on a firing squad why would you need six bullets on a firing squad uh so they had to like go up and stab him to death uh which yeah clearly much more effective clearly much more let him live

like he if you if a guy is alive past the first one he gets off we've talked about this before we both strongly disagree with capital punishment however if capital punishment is going to exist and you attempt to murder someone and fail that guy just get he doesn't only not get to go home. He just gets to go home.

Yeah. Like, fuck. God has this. God has decided, I guess. Right now, the even dumber part of all of this is by Lopez killing his own general in his second command and pulling the army back. He had seated Corentis, which was the army back he had seeded correntis which was the only thing he had managed to capture so far and the brazilian navy had moved into the piranha river not that kind of piranha uh cutting off any resupply or reinforcement from uh river and

it's not named for the fish no no um that makes sense that makes fucking sense so robles's army uh had been left behind when they pulled the commander to you know clap him for getting lost uh and he had taken so much time killing their generals which and admittedly he took a lot of time to kill the other one that the brazilian navy was able to swoop in and cut that army off. And this became a huge problem. Like, we need those soldiers. We're fighting all of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. I'm going to need those guys. In order to keep Robles' army functioning, sans Robles, he was going to have to break through the Brazilian Navy and keep the supply lines open even though keeping supply lines open in the grand scheme of this war

as we will have discussed and will continue to discuss is more of a vibe than a reality because there's no there's no like logistics there's no logisticians uh you know commanding this war it's still a bunch of guys on that world war one russia shit yeah pretty much now this is where i get to talk about the chadas which might be my favorite part of the war now a nine river boats would be ready to attack because remember most of paraguay's navy was not purposely built for naval combat they were repurposed river boats and shit uh they had one purpose-built attack naval warfare craft but one comparison to all of brazil's isn't a good it could match up so in order to level the playing field here because again lopez is dumb but he's not dumb enough to know that like i don't have enough

boats so to level the playing field each one of these nine riverboats would pull a canoe which was called a chada which carried 30 soldiers and a cannon sure okay they had no method of moving themselves they had no like power plants they had no oars

what? you just float and hope? you get towed by the riverboat. So their plan was to blow straight past the Brazilian Navy in the middle of the night, at which point they would be upriver. They would then release the canoes, which would then be taken downriver, propelled by the force of the river, where they could do drive-bys and then board the Brazilian Navy. This did not work out great all right all right this this seems like a dumb enough plan to work let's do it we'll tape baby now lopez planned this whole thing himself before handing over command to a guy named captain pedro

meza who was a man who did not have a single day of military experience before now was not in the Navy. Okay. Solid choice. Sounds like a winner. Let's do it. Lopez's plan hinged on surprise. Like I said, they couldn't charge balls deep directly into the Brazilian Navy. More than surprise, Joe. Surprise. Act of God.

You know, why not both? He had to blow by the Brazilian Navy, get up river and then release the Chata. So of course you'd have to do this at night in the darkness and then launch their attack. Doing this in daylight would simply not work. So this is where I get to tell you about how this happened during daylight hours.

Okay. I was going to say, this is like a parachuting the 101st into Normandy, but like way, way worse. It just makes sure you do that as the sun is coming up. Oh, don't do that. Famously, the 101st landing in broad-ass daylight. Now, where the Brazilian Navy was anchored, Lopez also hinged his plans,

thinking that, all right, maybe this won't work. He sent a thousand men and some cannons to scale nearby cliffs on either side of the river uh so they could attack yeah um and they had been waiting there for days uh so they were already out of like food and water and stuff okay you know this concept of surprise is immediately thrown out the window by meza who was not the greatest commander as soon as they started off which they did start off in the darkness one of the riverboats broke down. Meza probably could have carried on and maybe the plan would have worked.

Maybe not. The plan seems very stupid as it is. But, you know, sometimes very stupid plans do work. Yeah, Pantene Day is not going well. I mean, sometimes stupid plans work, especially when, despite the fact Brazil clearly has equipment superiorities especially in regards to their navy they're not any more competent so maybe it could have worked i'm not gonna say it would but fuck it why not right dumber things will work during this war i promise that sounds like a threat however meza was not exactly super comfortable with this. Remember what just happened. Robles got shot. So did his

second command. So Meza was quite afraid of the idea of not listening to Lopez's orders to the T. Right? He figured if he went off without the ship, boat, whatever, he would also be shot for disobeying an order.

So he ordered the fleet to stop and they spent several hours trying to fix it and the attack wasn't launched until 8 a.m in broad daylight uh-oh now this rendered the entire concept of the operation pointless but again i can't disobey his order or call off the attack i'll get fucking shot so off we go uh this is considered so goddamn stupid that nearby civilians who saw because i mean it's a river you can clearly like civilians can see this shit happening from their backyard right nearby civilians went out to the the riverbank and said quote heavens those paraguayans have balls thanks guys yeah hopefully they didn't have any hernias on those balls

Thanks, guys. Yeah. Hopefully didn't have any hernias on those balls. Maybe they did. It's not like they're going off the medicine level at the military head. I don't have high hopes for the civilian doctors. No. Congratulations.

You all have diphtheria. Though they're going to have more soon. Unfortunately, riddled with holes disease. I got what's known as terminal bullet cancer um now these chadas and their the riverboats to start hauling ass towards the brazilian navy which of course could clearly see them coming um because it's you know 8 a.m the element of surprise is gone which means they can't just shoot right on past them so the battle began as a drive-by as the Brazilians were confused as to what the hell was going on. It's one of those situations like, they can't be this stupid, right? Wrong!

And the Brazilians took so long in that shock of the moment to react that really the Paraguayan detachment was able to just get right on by. The very little crossfire going on, more of the Paraguayans firing on the Brazilians as they ran to their ships and got ready to fight. Because remember, they're an anchor. There's only so much crew on them.

Here's the funny part. This plan accidentally worked. Now, you could cut loose the chatas. I don't know what a plan accidentally comes together. Yeah. You could cut loose the chatas. I don't know when a plan accidentally comes together. Yeah. You could cut loose the chatas and attack the Navy as you were ordered to, or you can continue going straight

down this river, which would take you to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, who you're at war with. Right. So they stopped and released their death canoes instead. I understand that bombing Buenos Aires probably wouldn't have had that big of a tactical advantage by any means, especially with how underpowered these these river boats are. But I mean, it would have been a pretty big middle finger. Aha, pirate bombing.

And more effective than what they're about to do. Oh. So they cut loose their death canoes. Now, at this point, crowds of civilians had formed on either side of the riverbanks as both navies were within eyeshot of their towns. But the Brazilian Navy finally turned around and began to chase the Paraguayans. People were starting to

watch like a spectator sport and were cheering for their chosen sides. Then, the cannons that Lopez had stashed in the woods, in the cliffs above, opened fire on the Brazilian Navy, and the Paraguayan Navy began shooting as well. But now the Brazilians are moving downstream as they as they both were. Right. Because they're both hurtling downriver at this point, which made them go about two times as fast and made their ships pretty much uncontrollable. And this goes for both sides.

times as fast and made their ships pretty much uncontrollable. And this goes for both sides. So the runaway riverboat slammed into one another and the Paraguayans took advantage of the situation by firing at point blank range. This was a problem. Remember, one of the things that they were supposed to do was board the Brazilian Navy because their Navy sucks. They also want to steal Brazilian ships, which I mean, that's a much cheaper way of going out upgrading your Navy. Right. Remember how in episode two, they forgot the ladders?

Yes. They did that again. Oh. Nobody brought any grappling irons. Especially well-prepared army, Navy, whatever. They didn't bring any boarding nets. They didn't bring any grappling irons. Nothing. Which is a pretty

big oversight when your plan is to board and attack a navy you would think that this is like oh well we tried guys time to go home but they didn't instead they're like well we have to still try to board the brazilian navy so they just started flinging themselves at the enemy ships and grabbing onto anything that was hanging off sometimes one another all right suicide pact and all the goody yeah it was combat parkour this worked kind of some people did get on board the brazilian ships uh because so many people threw themselves at it and eventually someone will stick you know it's throwing up shit to lel see what sticks but you did it with your navy congrats and they fought in hand-to-hand combat and at one point one of the brazilian sharpshooter shot captain meza directly in the face um but once some of the borders got on the brazilian naval ships they were able to

lash them together like ad hoc with ropes and stuff which is not part of the original plan because they were supposed to have like ladders to get there but now the ships were lashed together in the middle of goddamn river current which is quite strong so the boats began just slamming together over and over and over again yes with men crawling up the side of it so you're just just like, oh, there goes a sailor. Every time a strong wave hit or a strong bit of current hit, the boats would slam together and kill a couple more dudes or send them flying off into the river where they would drown. Now, this led another glaring problem that they were quickly about to discover within the Paraguayan Navy. Like I pointed out, none of their boats are built for naval combat, minus one. That meant all of the Brazilian ships that were

built for combat were taller than them. They had protected boilers, stuff like that. But in this case, the height is a pretty big problem because that means they could fire directly down onto the Paraguayan ships, which is what they did. In comparison, where the Brazilians were built or modified for war with protected boilers, higher

guns, the Paraguayans weren't. Their boilers were completely unprotected. These are all steamships and having an unprotected boiler when you're shooting cannons at one another is not fucking good. Wait, Joe. So, of course, one of the Paraguayan ships saw its end when a boiler exploded from gunfire, resulting in a rush of boiling water, burning a large amount of its crew alive. Oh, that'll do it. alive. Oh, that'll do it.

By 4.30 p.m., the Paraguayan Navy lay mostly in ruins and partially melted, while the crew that were still alive swam for the shore. Whoops! Now, you remember Captain Robles from earlier, the guy that got got for getting lost? Well, his brother was captain of

one of the Paraguayan ships, and had been right next to a boiler when it exploded in his face. So now he looks like fucking Harvey Dent. Oh, he looks something that resembled loosely like pulled pork. Jesus Christ. He got pulled from the water

by the Brazilians because they generally at this point of the war, at least, were like, hey, we should probably take care of the wounded or whatever. And they started giving him first aid, and he woke up all of a sudden, because he was in shock from being burned and then thrown into the water. Understandably.

Yeah, and when he woke up, he loudly declared that he would rather die than accept medical care from the enemy, and then he died. Well, got your wish. You proved them right, boy. Well done. Soldiers never change, Rand.

Honor doesn't do you very good when you're dead. No. What is it? Go ask a trillion souls if honor matters. Yeah. Now, as the ships limp back to port, Lopez was there to see the whole thing, or what was left of them limped back to port. whole thing or what was left of them limped back to port while furious so much so that he shot a sailor well he ordered a sailor shot lopez didn't shoot him he accused of cowardice completely at random he's just like you there with the face fucking coward oh okay i just got here man

come on man you have any idea how how many ships I had to climb up? We didn't even bring ladders. Because of you. A boiler exploded and melted my fucking ass off. But after he did that, he championed the Navy for their victory, which he then made up. Now, people think that he was trying to spin this for the newspaper, for the home front, for the news, whatever. Oh, sure. Everyone around him seems to believe that they actually won, despite failing in every meaningful, objective way.

Turns out you can just say whatever you want and say it's a victory. When you're a bloodthirsty despot, you can just do whatever you want. That's handy. And because people were worried if lopez heard anything otherwise it would be them next on the wall so when the wounded made it back to paraguay to medical care whatever they were told like don't say anything don't don't fucking say shit about what happened like do not tell anybody meanwhile back with esta garibe at the rio grande do sol invasion force he was able to cross the river

and walk right into brazil because like we had pointed out before most of brazil undefended it's you know frontier the government's pretty not great when it comes to yeah and you know admittedly in the grand scheme of things if you're brazil like okay this one army came in really what are they gonna do are they gonna fucking march to the goddamn east i doubt it right right and he marched straight into the town of sao borgia and uh still hardly ran to any defenders uh and there were a few in the town they took a a couple shots, and when realized that, oh, this army actually means it, the defenders ran off. So happy with their victory,

Estagriba's force took the next 10 days to thoroughly loot the town, which is what they do everywhere they go. I mean, that's their supply system, is tearing down everything that isn't nailed up, and then eating it. We've all been hungry boys. Yeah. During this looting

esta griba set a captain lopez no relation uh to scout ahead for their next target but while the captain was gone esta griba decided to leave south borgia without ever sending him a letter message anything that shit has changed he took the entire army south. So then Captain Lopez returned a few days later. He's like, oh, shit. Where's everybody? And he rushed to catch up. Guys. Now, you're probably wondering, how did he find where Estegribe went?

Yes. You know, like leaving breadcrumbs in the woods or whatever? Sure. He kind of did that, but with dead people. Oh. Everywhere his army went, he left behind a trail of loot, dead farm animals, and the occasional corpse that would just drop dead from illness. A lot of draft animals were dying. So he was like, oh, we'll just follow the trail of human misery.

So he's like, oh, we'll just follow the trail of human misery. Now, as he went, he found the trail where the main army had taken, and that was very easy to find. Sick and dying men were all over. Horses were keeled over from exhaustion and discarded equipment marked the entire way. Because as it was getting hotter and weather was getting worse, people were literally just throwing off their uniforms. There was people just marching around naked, even barefoot still, which sounds like... They're not naked. Hey, it's a premonition. They're just missing the clown wigs. Now, as they marched down the trail, up the hills and the mountains, and through the stifling heat and humidity, all with little water and no food.

Because when they went out, when Captain Lopez's detachment went out, they were looting. Their goal was to bring supplies back into South Borgia. But then when they saw that the main army was gone, they dumped everything and ran off after it. So without all of their loot, they're fucked. It's not like they could like, oh, let me open my fucking MRE real quick. Like this army was so fucked, they didn't even have like hard tech. Oh, dear. They didn't even have like hard tech. Oh, dear. They didn't have anything.

And I mean, there's plenty of water in the area, but it's all contaminated, which, of course, leads men to drink it, get sick and die or drink it, get so weak they can't march and then be left to die. So this meant people and draft animals are dropping left and right and would just be left behind, adding to the pile of dead and dying along the trail. Then Captain Lopez and his men had to wade through a chest-high flooded meadow. These are really common in the general warrior. There's a very specific Spanish word for them that I can simply not pronounce, and I'm not going to attempt to, but it rains a lot, and these meadows flood bad, like waist-high water, almost like swamps. And through every battle, it's like a known terrain feature

that everybody has to pull their ass through. It sucks. People lose equipment in it and drown in them. And he's wading through this flooded meadow. And as they were doing so, they were ambushed by a Brazilian force that had just been chased off by Esta Gariba's main army. The force outnumbered Lopez three to one,

but using action movie logic for some reason and telling how incompetent the command structure of these armies was at the time, the Brazilians sallied out of their hiding spots like one detachment at a time. I think it's because their overall

command structure is broken. They have no good runner system put in place. There's really no command and control. Because remember, their offices are very badly trained. Sure. So outside of immediate vicinity detachments, they have no strength of command. They don't know how to.

No small unit leadership. You got to get that small unit leadership. I think they have small unit leadership. You gotta get that small unit leadership. I think they have small unit leadership, possibly, but anything above that's outside of their ability. He did unit leadership. It's kind of like how, you know, we talked about before in previous episodes

where, you know, some armies had never done any large-scale training missions at any point. So, like, you have a brigade or battalion commander or, hell, a division commander who has no idea how to command a unit that he's in charge of. So you have all of these different officers pulling against you and you have no idea how to keep them in line. Not to mention all the confusion that happens when people start firing muskets at one another. At this point, Lopez is

holding okay because the Brazilians are attacking him one bayonet charge at a time. Because, as of course we've talked about before, bayonets weren't really the point. Your goal wasn't to kill people with a bayonet. Your goal was to take the field. You fire a couple shots at them. You charge, take the field, they run off. You're not hoping to spear 80 fucking people to death or whatever but they fired a couple shots like a volley or two then charged

at Lopez and each time he would fight them back because when they split up like that they were very easily handled and they completely negated their own advantages and this turned into the battle of uh sorry and this is the real first pitched battle of the

war is that a wrong I'm sure I'm right flawless I speak perfect Spanish okay Lopez got his men in an orderly infantry line and easily fended off these piecemeal attacks until the Brazilian Colonel Lima remembered oh wait I have cavalry what the fuck am I doing

so he simply sent the cavalry to sweep around the flank as they were attacking. And that worked. That ended up being all that he needed to do, despite the fact this took several hours for him to remember. And so this chased the Paraguayan force off to the bushes, which they left behind 200 dead men. Now this virtually eliminated Lopez as a threat. Despite having cavalry and manpower advantage, Lima just allowed Lopez and his men to get away.

The survivors, of course, rejoining Estagriba and making the victory completely meaningless. They could have just run them down with cavalry, but they didn't. That's something that will happen continuously throughout this war. It's almost like at Gettysburg, where everyone's like, they could have just chased down Lee and ended the war.

I'm like, yeah, but they kind of suck at their jobs. This certainly wouldn't have ended the war, but it would have killed a lot of Paraguayan soldiers, and they just let them get away. Now, as if to underline how meaningless this victory was, immediately afterwards, a Paraguayan force under Estegriba's second command, Pedro Duerte, simply marched into the town of La Cruz and took it without a fight.

So again, the Brazilians took the field, didn't amount to much. To fight against this, the allies did nothing. They didn't really have to. Both the governments of Argentina and Brazil, and of course, the government of uruguay but not really mattering too much to its status as a glorified brazilian puppet didn't give a single fuck about any of the movements that paraguay was doing even the riverboat cluster fuck simply told them that their blockade was working because paraguay is getting desperate to try to launch fucking canoe-borne attacks at them sure as for the invasion of Brazil, Brazil, like I said, didn't care. They knew that to hit anything of note

and to really hurt Brazil, they would have to march and fight through thousands of miles of nothingness, dying of disease, environmental hazards, whatever, to get at anything. So they're like, all right, let them go. See how far they go.

Bye. And while they were doing that, the allies could finish mobilizing because they hadn't yet. Even if Argentina's component of the allied army was busy tearing itself apart amongst political lines,

which they did with the occasional mutiny, they still needed time to get everything together. Soon, the allied army set out for Pasos de los libras trying fucking trying here sorry and that is when things got worse they still hadn't bothered to work out the kinks in their supply or movement problems don't make me tap the logistics sign

here someone made a meme about this because of me another thing is moving a large armed force together as one is very hard to do it takes that span of control and like effective command of large units small units and their ability to speak to one another they had no idea how to do any of that so units are just getting separated there were no roads no quartermasters no nothing the pack animals they did have quickly died because nobody brought anything for them to fucking eat oh well that's why you eat the pack animals dude i mean i understand it's this this circle of life but within the ranks of the military. But some militaries did bring livestock with them to kill when they were hungry. But you still have to feed them before that point comes. These were draft animals.

They're carrying cannons. They're carrying artillery. They're carrying ammo. All the heavy shit that you don't want your soldiers carrying. Because when you're emaciated soldiers with no fucking boots or dragging cannons through the jungle for eight months or whatever, they're going to fucking die. You need a donkey or a horse to do that shit.

So you need to feed your animals. So your men don't die. And they didn't even do like, and I can just imagine at some point they're like, I don't know, mile 150 or something like, Hey man, man, did you bring the animal feed? Like the what? Oh, fuck.

Because it's not like they could go forage for food. And we talked about this during our series on Napoleon's invasion of Russia. An army is incredibly destructive when it moves through an area. By the time it moves through an area by the time it moves through an area there's like it kills everything there like whether they're stomping everything down picking it clean just breaking through it as they walk to make room for things so like after you go through an area there's really not a whole lot for a pack animal to eat you have to bring your own shit napoleon learned that too which I should point out was several decades before this.

Yeah. Don't use guys. I don't know why we have to say this. Oh, we're out of horses. Uh, strap Jim, Bob and Robert to the fucking cart.

Let's see what happens. All right. Work those glutes boys. We are getting to Brazil. Also, there wasn't enough carts. And even before the pack animals are they just carrying it your chevrolet eggs

and even before the pack animals started dying they didn't even have enough of those they no one even brought enough fucking uniforms the uruguayan soldiers had never even been issued saves weight saves weight saves weight saves weight they have been waiting three months for boots i don't even want to think about the kinds of diseases these dudes are getting all of them yeah you can't imagine going going to like one of those intake facilities so they're like do you have a family history of just a big check mark you just turn in a piece of paper that big green check mark from the top

of the page to the bottom of the page and like you know that episode the Simpsons with all the little things going through the door to explain how Mr. Burns isn't getting sick yes it's like that except all of those diseases are a fucking SWAT team,

and they kick open the door and flashbang your family. You have diphtheria and sepsis and cholera. And we won't discover it for another 90 years, but you have HIV. Not to mention all of the problems that come with bros camping in the fucking jungle in the tens of thousands in the 1800s. I just want to be bros, Joe. But also the harshness of the environment. They the in the fucking jungle in the tens of thousands in the 1800s joe but all of also

the harshness of the environment they're in the rocassabian they're in the fucking jungle walking around barefoot like it was mentioned multiple times like the size of dinner plates oh we haven't gotten to that part yet fuck my ass but, these guys are marching like, oh, private so-and-so stepped on a particularly sharp stick. His foot rotted off and he died. Like, oh, chalk another one up. Oh, and the people that did get uniforms issued to them, they were so cheaply and badly made,

they immediately chafed their bodies so badly that when they got wet, which was all the time, they're always wet from sweat or rain or whatever, they marched without their pants on because they were chafing them so badly it was like making them bleed.

So everybody's marching around in Donald Duck uniform. This is Woody the Pooh Battalion. Not to mention, at night, it might be the jungle, but this is the same Pooh battalion. Not to mention at night, it might be the jungle, but this is the same thing kind of had like shocked people in the Middle East where it gets so fucking hot during the day.

But at night the temperature drops and people were dying of hypothermia. Oh, and then in the middle of the night, deserters were like, fuck this, we're out of here. And they would run off into the jungle, half naked and shoeless sure that sucks behind this parade of human misery came the camp followers which

we've talked about before in other wars but they're kind of what make the army of this period tick they're tailors cobblers cooks sex workers whatever they keep the army functioning and they're the most functional supply line that they had uh i mean granted they did it by grifting the shit out of the military like hey i have bread it's now four times the amount of the cost that would be in the civilian market so that's just like i know yield halliburton and probably the most important thing to the soldiers were all the sex workers. And like officers joke that the sex workers were tougher than their soldiers,

which upon like actually being true, like one of them said that one of them dipped out of the column of marching because the camp followers are following them like they're intermixed. And they just like stopped off on the side of the road, gave fucking birth, wrap that kid up in a rag, and then just like marched along on the side of the road gave fucking birth wrap that kid up in a rag

and then just like marched along with them within the hour god god damn dude another child for the army that's another mouth to feed get it strap this fucker to the to the cart he's got a cannon the pole he's got legs let's do this this. Time to learn to walk, baby. How many horsepower do a dozen infants have? Now, as all of this is going on, the Paraguayan's army was marching south. Lopez,

the president this time, because there's so many that we've already talked about. I don't want to... Solano Lopez had given strict orders for this force to go no further than the Abiqui River. The reason for that is quite like, you're going to outrun us. We can't supply you. You're easy to cut off on the other side of the river, as we've already discovered.

Estagriba simply ignored him, assuming, well, eventually I'm going to have to cross this river. I might as well do it now because there's no Brazilian soldiers around it. I can cross it unopposed. And he he did though it took him a couple days and he found the other side of the river likewise devoid of enemy soldiers because again brazil's tactic is to make you invade brazil right so much so that he wrote to lopez saying quote we seem to be marching through territory where the constitution of Paraguay already holds sway because nobody was opposing him. Yeah, you can see where this is.

This is going to lead to bad places. Soon he walked into the town of Uruguayana and despite its name, it's in Brazil. Also unopposed. Even weirder than that, the town was stocked

full of food and supplies as well as fresh trenches had been dug all around it to withstand a siege. Now, the Brazilians had known that he was coming vaguely, and they assumed that this is going to be the place they're going to make their stand. And the Brazilian commander, Canabaro, changed his mind at the last second and then fucked off, leaving everything behind, not knowing that Estegarribe was so close behind him, and he just walked right into this defensible and supplyable situation. Eventually, the forward Paraguayan forces under Duarte made it to the outskirts

of Pasos de los Libres and began looting the countryside for every farm animal that he could get his hands on. He asked Estagribe for reinforcements, which were promptly denied. Not for any tactical reason, mind you, but because the two men fucking hated one another, and he wanted them to die.

Which, sure. I love that personal beefs can get so bad you're willing to sacrifice an entire military operation just to spite a guy. I don't know if I've ever hated anybody that much, but I can respect that. Fuck that dude. Okay, General Estegribe, could you explain to me, President Solano Lopez, why you did not reinforce your own second in command?

Fuck him right in his dumb face. He sucks. Fuck that guy, that's why. Ah, okay. Tactically wise decision. Now, when Duerte pointed out that he only had 4,000 men and the main allied army of 12,000 was headed his way, the boss responded with a pretty much, that sounds more like a you problem. Like, he didn't say it quite like that,

but he's like, well, that sounds like something for you to handle. Like, bro, come on. Now, if that wasn't dumb enough, Duarte arranged his men with their backs and right flanks to the river and their left to one of those flooded valleys when they arranged for battle, meaning he gave them no way to retreat. Now I can assume he did this to motivate his men like, Hey,

there's no way fucking out of this battle. It's either we win or we die. That's me giving him the best possible analysis I can think of. Oh, and also you can get rid of that part because right in front of him was a hill. He positioned himself surrounded on three sides by environmental

barriers and on the low ground. Oh, classic blunder. This is something so stupid. I don't think a 13 year old playing a Total War game would do. I'm not very good at this guy fucking did it uh for people who are not military nerds you never want to see the high ground especially in the age

of powder muskets like it's bad fucking just you don't want to do it now you certainly didn't want to do it then yeah you could feasibly say he put himself in a corner for motivational reasons and then put himself on the downslope of a hill because he just really hates his own soldiers i don't know rather than electing to set up on top of the hill i don't know he could have done that and still cornered himself but whatever he fucked himself hence started the battle of yeti immediately the allied armies saw these really good advantages that Duarte had just given them out of the kindness of his heart. And they aligned themselves on top of the hill and just started shooting them.

Like, thanks, buddy. And started shooting the piss out of them. And Duarte had no artillery and had trapped himself. So it's not like he can maneuver. He can't maneuver his army out of a corner and he has no heavy or even light cannon to shoot back. His only advantage was that the allied army could not control itself. The Uruguayan detachment on the allied side just would not follow orders specifically, because it would have been really easy for the allies to simply post up on there and shoot them

constantly until the battle was over. Instead, the Uruguayans kept charging in. The overall commander of the force was an Argentinian. Argentine? I'm not sure. Is it Argentinian or Argentine? I think it's Argentine. Argentine. I'll go with Argentine.

Argentine, I've heard. I don't know. Argentine. I feel not fancy enough to pronounce it that way, which by that I mean correct. Now, the Argentine force was led by General Punero, and he planned to simply sit back and shoot them and use their light cannons to shell the hell out of them

until they surrender or all die, probably surrender. But Uruguayan infantry kept running and kept charging into battle. Hilariously enough, they're under the command of the president of Uruguay, Flores. Lord fucking Steve, yes. And the the thing is is when he started charging other units charging one at a time yeah because you got to right a lot of the times a lot of military units in wars like this didn't actually get past a specific order in lieu of an, simply follow the guy in front of you.

I mean, you line up in a line and fucking blast each other in the face at 50 paces or whatever, and might as well follow him. So when people saw the Uruguayans running into battle, like, oh, fuck, I guess we're charging, and they joined in. So before long, Bonero lost total command of anything, and it was a complete chaotic mess. Duarte ordered his cavalry to charge out of hiding where it had been sitting off to the left of the line. Now, due to the total chaos of the allied line and the complete breakdown

of command, they were actually almost able to break through and kill President Flores. Which is not the last time I'm going to say that President Flores almost dies because of his own incompetence. Yeah, this guy seems to get lucky I guess is the to uh i don't know get lucky i guess is the phrase i don't have a lot of faith in him i'll say no i wouldn't and eventually when

he did damn near die one of the cavalrymen ran up alongside of him and took a swipe at him with the sword and hit him however he hit them with the flat side of his sword, I assume on accident. Nobody's going to do that shit on purpose. Tactical bonk. The horny jail with you. Yeah. Now, the funniest part is somehow the Paraguayans were still holding because despite all of their flaws, rank and file Paraguayan soldiers were much more disciplined

than the allied forces. Despite being badly outnumbered by three to one and being charged by all sides down a hill and pinned into a corner, they held the ranks and discipline and like delivered discipline fire onto the oncoming allies. But another problem is, is because of all of these different units in the allied army were acting effectively independently. Duarte really couldn't like think of what was going to happen next. He was fighting like six different armies all working on their own. Ah!

I just want to go home! The overall chaos and sheer weight of numbers finally broke Duarte's army, and they had nowhere to go. Their only escape was through the flooded area behind them or the river, but at best, the best case scenario was still chest deep. So they sloshed against a fetid pond as horsemen rode them down. Others attempted to swim across the river just to drown. And before long, Duarte's entire army was dead or at least captured.

Duarte himself was captured. And a lot of the surviving POWs were forced to join the Uruguayan army. When given the choice like, hey, you can enlist in this army or get shot, where do I sign? Fair enough. After this, Esagribe's force is besieged at Uruguayana, though the march

there was slowed down by most of the entire Uruguayan army being riddled with typhus, and it's thought that they did this by eating diseased beef. What a way to go, it's easy you you simply eat around the rot it's fine it's like mold on bread just pick it off yeah except it's rotten meat you'll be fine because remember we talked about i believe in the last episode uruguayans are effectively eating the trash of the other two allied armies because

they hated them so on their march to uruguay, they're eating the Argentine and Brazilian discarded food refuse and getting sick from it. Though this is second harvest. You guys heard about dark lunch? guys heard about dark lunch no it could also be caused from the sheer amount of death in their camp because like there's so many dead livestock and horses just dropping down their camp and because they had no other food they ate them so yeah not good uh and at this point so many horses had died from malnutrition or disease that the entire allied cavalry force is forced to dismount. So they've defeated their own cavalry. Well done.

Outstanding work, boys. As the allies shelled the town, the river flooded behind them, turning their camp into a swamp. Then the wind picked up fast enough to snatch away amidst tents. And if being diseased and homeless wasn't bad enough, the joint Allied command structure started disagreeing with one another, which then made their camp devolve into a cluster of bitching and moaning as nobody wanted to listen to one another anymore. Now, according to the Treaty of the Triple Alliance, the Allied commander was supposed to be from wherever the land army was currently marching on, that being Argentina, Brazil, probably not Uruguay. I'm going to assume they wouldn't have given command to Flores. But the army was now in Brazil, so command should have passed from the Argentine president, Mitterre, to the Brazilian commander. But Mitterre simply refused. He didn't want to. Understandable. This led to arguments that you could probably foresee coming

looking at that kind of agreement. Each faction of the army argued over what they should do with the Paraguayan defenders. The Brazilians pointed out defenders only had about supplies for a month. After all, they should know they put them there. So they should just wait them out. Like fewer casualties will hang out here in the jungle and let them starve themselves out. Now, this discounts the fact that their army was also dying in the field. More from disease and malnourishment and accidents than the enemy fire, but whatever. The Paraguayans defending

and their commander Estegribe intended on holding out. He did not intend on surrendering, but he had kind of fucked himself. By crossing the river without orders, he'd cut off his own line of communications and resupply, and all of his messengers that he sent out to make contact with Solano Lopez were captured. Not a single word was heard from his army within Paraguay for 40 days, so nobody knew what was happening to them, so nobody was sending any help because they had no idea what was going on. They were basically getting their shit rocked.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Now, eventually, the Brazilian tactics did work. The Paraguayans surrendered in the middle of September after they had long run out of food. The soldiers who finally came out of town horrified the allies, sick, dying, and reduced to skin and bones, though they still

held on to their loot and were piss drunk, which, respect. What other way is there to be? You know, I may have not eaten in three weeks, but I still have this piano. What way is left? What is the caloric intake of a fur jacket?

You guys see how many babies we got drunk. One allied officer said, quote, it was the most comical if not the most abject scene that South America has ever witnessed. That sounds about right, yeah. Of his one's 12,000

man army, only 5,000 had survived long enough to surrender. The invasion of Brazil and Argentina for that matter was a complete and total failure, leading to a 30,000 man army under the command of resquin evacuated making his way back to paraguay rather than continue to fight it now soon talk of invading paraguay was paramount among the allies because like okay well they're gone see how they

like it selena lopez doesn't seem too keen on surrendering, so we might have to invade them. We're going to smoke them out, boys. But, I mean, this is deeply, deeply unpopular, mostly because to them it seemed impossible. I mean, for one, just moving the Allied Army 350 miles through Brazil took three months. None of the

problems that we've already talked about had been fixed, and they'd only gotten worse because their army continued to grow larger and move farther away from its home. For instance, when the Brazilian First Corps marched just five miles, the Corps disintegrated, leaving behind

600 muskets, 600 cartridge bags, 300 rucksacks, and countless other things. You incompetent fucks. Just hemorrhaging equipment like this is more equipment than like the Uruguayan military has. Remember those guys don't have fucking boots.

So he's white Joe. Another Argentine army marched for one day and had to be sidelined for nine days just so officers could try to figure out where all their fucking soldiers went. Good all one on nine off an effective way to move. You know what?

I'm fine with the schedule. I want that work schedule for me when I was in the army. I worked my one day. I'll see you in a week and a half, suckers. DUI-ing your way out of the motor pool, yes. This is the part where I get to say, wait, it gets worse. I said the thing. Congratulations, Joe. It's the first time I've said it in this episode, and we've. I said the thing. Congratulations, Joe.

It's the first time I've said it in this episode, and we've already been going an hour. I'm proud of you. Dozens of soldiers were killed by wildlife. Yeah. Yeah. Spiders the size of dinner plates. I've never been to the jungles of South America,

but I've heard some things, and it's certainly not the place I'd want to go wandering through in a military column, especially without boots, especially without fucking boots or food or anything else. In one case, a fucking Jaguar killed two Argentinian soldiers and

dragged them off into the jungle to eat them. How do you even like be me? It's like a platoon commander taking a roll call in the morning like lopez jaguar fuck uh carlos jaguar god damn it i want to go home others fell victims to snakes and spiders and even like then people who didn't randomly get taken out by what seems like weaponized australia there were still all of the

fucking mosquitoes you repeat yourself the worst and biggest threat that they had were mosquitoes I mean that sounds very stupid until I point out the fact that holy shit so much malaria yeah just just so much malaria

everyone had lice and 50% of the soldiers that got malaria died. Not to mention they lacked any means of controlling the malaria. They had no anti-malarial drugs and if someone got sick, they just got ditched on the side of the road.

Understandable. Not cool, but understandable. Yeah. Even as the Allied Army positioned itself for their invasion in January of 1866, their camps rapidly began to fill with the dead and the dying though the uruguayans had finally gotten their boots it's been a year like my feet are nothing but a brick of callous why do i need these now and like their uniforms that they were wearing like the clothes that they had brought with them had literally rotted off their backs by now from all the humidity and shit now that seems bad wait until you see what's been happening in paraguay not just the military but the entire

country on top of their combat losses their men were also being ravaged by disease since the war had begun 35 000 of them had died, most of them from an epidemic of smallpox and measles that ran uncontrolled through their ranks. No thank you. Now, when you get sick like that, when you get injured, sick, etc., what do you think the military does to you? They send

you back home. Which meant they then brought this epidemic into the civilian population, which then it burned straight through. They had virtually no doctors, no supplies, and resorted to trying to cure this shit with wine, sugar,

and boiled meat. It's generally what's known as the British protocol. No, it didn't work. Of course it didn't fucking work. You can't cure typhus and smallpox with boiled meat that's how anything works imagine you're dying in a hospital with smallpox and they're like hello friend i've boiled you some british food enjoy yeah lopez introduced another round of conscription struggling to

maintain a force on paper of 30,000 or more. The French minister to Paraguay noted that many of these kids were as young as 14. They had not been issued uniforms, tents, or even boots, and he had burned through the kids. He began to arm state-owned slaves, which were also a thing, and no, freedom was not promised to them. After he burned through them, he then drafted the, quote, infirm and lame. Many were missing fingers, toes, or entire limbs. Virtually everyone being recruited at this point was terribly weak, disabled from sickness, disease, or malnutrition, or were half already

dead from the incoming endemic within the civilian population. Alright, we got the A team. Like, you can see how this is a feedback loop. He's created a situation where it's like, you've just created a combustion engine for your entire population. You're feeding

them in for more fucking horsepower, but you're putting in shitty gasoline. Some of these people were so weak for various fucking horsepower, but you're putting in shitty gasoline. Some of these people were so weak for various different reasons, or so small or so disabled that they couldn't even pick up their muskets. Originally, the plan was to feed the military and civilian population with the nearly 100,000

cattle that they had stolen from their invasion and had made their way back to Paraguay. However, someone fed these guys the wrong kind of grass and they all died. So you can add waves of starvation on top of everything else. Now, the public mood began to shift against the war for pretty obvious reasons. So Lopez introduced a good old fashioned reign of terror.

He thought spies were everywhere and the nation's prisons were emptied out and public executions became a daily occurrence. Anyone who even so much as thought something bad about the war and someone heard about it, they found themselves against a wall. Of course, this is a bit of a cell phone because these were all people he could have recruited.

Lopez also then went out to the front line, which was separated by a river to observe the enemy with a telescope. Oh, dear. At this point, this is very much a frozen conflict. The Allies had not yet invaded Paraguay yet. Go, let it

go. Boo. Oh, I thought you'd like that. Though, to be fair, if someone had Elsa's powers, this would probably end a lot faster. Have you seen Frozen? No. That's a decent movie. The most I've ever seen of it is that, I think.

The war was stuck because the Allies lacked the ability and will to invade Paraguay, and Paraguay certainly lacked the ability to reinvade them. So they were stuck on this river, staring at each other. Lopez insisted to all of the officers around him that the Allied force on the other side of the river was mocking him. So naturally, he demanded his forces assault their positions immediately. Despite it being outnumbered, it being broad daylight,

and most of his soldiers being half dead, hundreds of Paraguayan soldiers packed themselves into canoes and attempted to cross the river to attack. They're immediately shot to hell clutching his world's smartest general mug world's smartest Marshall. Remember he promoted himself, right?

Golden sword and all. Um, now when that wave failed, another one was sent in and then another, and then another. And this happened until Lopez finally got bored and left the front line and people had to stop dying. Things remain this way for months. The allies are dragging their heels, planning an invasion that they really didn't want to do.

But one of the main problems was the river itself. During the season they found themselves in, the rivers were only 12 feet deep. And if they were going to ferry men across, the Brazilian Navy would need like 13 feet minimum to cross the river safely and not like ground themselves. That meant they had to wait to be able to transport their own armies across the river. Another problem was the Brazilian Naval Commander who really didn't want to use his ships for this

and put them at risk. So he purposely planned very slowly, hoping the allies wouldn't want to use them in the end. He was kind of hoping to delay long enough until any invasion got cancelled. When the Brazilian fleet finally made an appearance, the Paraguayans launched guerrilla canoe warfare on the fleet, firing

on them and then jumping into the water and swimming away when the Brazilians tried to fire back. Now, the canoe warfare, while cool as hell, didn't really do anything to slow the invasion preparation, but it did make everyone really, really mad, so that's something. Slowly,

the first signs of the invasion began as allied forces began taking Paraguayan river fortresses that dotted the landscape, which there's quite a few of them. Most of them were very, very antiquated, kind of like the concept of a fortress itself at this point, honestly. Lopez refused to

allow any of these to fall without a fight or authorize a surrender or authorize retreat. Lopez ordered the area around the Itapiro Fortress to be fortified with thousands of men, guns, and trenches for a coming invasion, which was still going at a snail's pace.

For an example, the entire Brazilian contingent of the invasion had to be delayed because they discovered their newest soldiers had actually been issued ammo that would not work in their muskets. Lots of sad work, gentlemen. Whoops. And Mitterre, who was still an overall Allied commander, had

no maps. So, you know, all things you gotta work through. Then, at the last minute on April 16th, 1886, the Allies invaded Paraguay with only two full days of tactical planning, choosing an area a few miles down the river at Tres Boca

where Lopez had not built any defenses at all. They landed in a vast flooded swamp unopposed and Lopez ordered the fortifications at Itapira to be abandoned, which I'm sure pissed off all of the soldiers who just spent all that time digging them. Outstanding work. You idiots. Though

Lopez might not have fought the Brazilians at Itapiro, other Brazilians did on accident. After making their way through the flooded enemy trenches, soldiers heard something in the night and opened fire. This slowly grew into a pitched battle where nobody could see the other person and were instead just firing at muzzle flashes in the night and opened fire. This slowly grew into a pitched battle where nobody could see the other person and were instead just firing at muzzle flashes

in the dark. After a few hours of shooting, someone managed to get the situation under control and figured out that two different Brazilian Army units had bumped into one another in the night and started shooting at one another. Dozens were dead. Yep. You did it, boys. You opposed your own

amphibious landing. Congratulations, morons. I would say that was the first time someone had ever opposed their own amphibious landing, but we've already talked about the illusion campaigns. That's terrific work. The next Paraguayan garrison at Pasos de La Patria fell without a fight. Lopez decided the position was too vulnerable and simply rode off into the night without telling anybody, not even his aides or mistresses who he all left behind.

Only once the next camp did he tell General Resquin to destroy everything and retreat. They were going to move to a more defensible area. As the Paraguayans burned their own camp and ran away to keep up with the president, someone looted his own personal belongings along the way. Yes! I hope that guy

made off with some baller shit. I don't know what he stole. Some private wandering into the camp with like a million dollar necklace. Yeah. Like, damn, that guy who doesn't have boots looks fly as hell.

Looking like a thrift shop video by Vackelmore. The next Paraguayan strongpoint was picked to be built next to a swampy area next to a stream called the Estero Bellico, and Lopez sent around 3,000 soldiers off into the surrounding swamps to slow down the

invading vanguard, which was mostly made up of Uruguayan soldiers. These were the easiest targets of the Allied Army, and even the other Allies had been robbing them at this point, leaving them little in the way of ammunition. Uh-oh. One of the ambushes turned into the so-called Battle of Estero Bellico. Now, this is probably one of the dumbest things that happens during the war.

Paraguayan Colonel Diaz had set a trap using a combined force of cavalry and infantry to ambush the coming Uruguayan vanguard force. Now, as the Uruguayans are marching, they heard someone off in the jungle going, Viva! Viva! Over and over and over again, as Colonel Diaz kept chanting, Viva! to get his men motivated for the ambush. His men then echoed his viva so they're like hey look at those assholes in the jungle and then the battle started jesus christ come on dude now with their surprise ruined it turned into a pitch battle where again president

flores nearly got killed again he found himself in the middle of the battle, stabbing people with a lance, got de-horsed and nearly captured before he was able to escape. Now, eventually, this ambush-esque idea wore off and the Allies were able to keep marching through them because they had a much greater number of soldiers. And they drove the Paraguayans off killing nearly 3 000 people though at this point this is something that lopez would call a victory however because his forces were able to steal some cannons which they really did need uh though it cost them 3 000 dead soldiers so you did it now this turned into a new kind of tactic, guerrilla warfare. All throughout the swamps, groups of Paraguayan soldiers waded in ambush to constantly skirmish through the swamps as the allies made their way through.

This forced the allies to march through, which is a mess of already being in a swamp, and then constantly fighting small clumps of Paraguayan soldiers, virtually all of whom fought to the death. And when they finally got to the Paraguayan main trench line, this ended with the two armies facing off against one another on either side

of the northern part of the Estero Belico, but their closest part of the lines were not even 100 yards apart. This would eventually turn into one of the bloodiest battles of South American history, the battle of two UT,

which also is very, very stupid. Love to see it. Lopez knew he had to dislodge the allies from their position. And he believed if he didn't do that, if he didn't immediately kick them off their, their little foothold, they would use that as a step off point for the rest of the invasion of

Paraguay, but more immediately, to eventually attack him. And he wanted the advantage of being on the attack, which despite the fact that everybody's dug in, that's not an advantage. It's an advantage, Joe, but the advantage. And for the first time, I do have to admit that he

was right about something. An Allied prisoner told Lopez an Allied attack was coming on May 25th and he believed that he had to act before they did. So he planned his attack the day before the 24th. You can imagine how much actual in-depth planning went into this, which was not much. Slim to none.

Yeah. The defenses were so close, any offensive could be fought from from your own position. You could literally just stand up and shoot at them. So his plan consists of sending in three columns of soldiers around the flanks to attack the enemy reserve, thereby smashing them

against their own forward defenses. The plan required surprise, which, as we know, nobody's very good at here, in order to work, but surprise was impossible. Like I said, you could go, hey, look, they're moving. You can't sneak around this shit. its work but surprise was impossible you like i said you could go hey look they're moving like

you can't sneak around this shit over there guys so everybody knew that the attack was coming because they could see them preparing to attack any kind of surprise attack on a fortified position required a detailed knowledge of enemy positions and lopez didn't really have that nor did he he didn't seem to have the concept of reconnaissance patrol he never uses reconnaissance in anything uh so his attack was planned around whatever he could see personally from his position with like a telescope he was tactically eye fucking the situation this dude loves a telescope he's a fan yeah especially because he's seeing it so he can trust it he doesn't trust his own generals. He has to see it. Now, his plan also required him to control

the battle from those same heights once it started. Moving in his units, micromanaging the entire battle rather than telling his officers what he expected of them to do. No, I'll tell you directly as it happens. That's not how 1800s warfare works.

Mostly because communication doesn't really exist sucks ass right yeah and also everybody's using fucking black powder weapons so you could assume as soon as the battle starts and people start shooting you can't see anything anymore that's exactly what happened on the morning of the 24th and the battle started the entire battlefield was immediately obscured and powder spoke oh no nobody could see what was happening from the higher positions which you think they would have known about because they had already fought several fucking battles and be like black powder is a thing that occurs and occludes our vision but we know about it actually so as soon as the battle began all command and

control gone all of the paraguayan soldiers are now attacking on their own volition very little actual organized warfare happening just chaotic men throwing themselves at the allied trench lines oh good men charged forward into allied lines and no orders outside of uh go that way now when the first 10 or 15 minutes passed and the powder smoke immediately blanketed the battlefield lopez decided well i can't see anything so he left his command position and went back into his dugout to eat breakfast two of the paraguayan flank attacks actually launched on time half naked sword wielding and screaming out of the nearby bushes oh yeah third got lost missed the mark by two goddamn hours,

and then turned around and went back to the line. I don't even know how you get lost in this situation. Now, the forces that could attack were blunted immediately by the terrain. Horses, which the Paraguayans still had while the Allies did not, could not ride through chest-deep swamp water nor did they...

You couldn't order them to do that. Horses won't simply refuse not to mention these aren't exactly highly trained military horses at this point those are all dead so you got like regular ass people's horses that you've stolen requisition for military service have no idea how to react with gunfire going around so they're all panicking and throwing people off into the swamp so the ones that are able to actually keep their shit together had to ride through a thin strip of solid ground that kept them out of the water obviously seeing all of these cavalrymen conga lining towards your position made it very very easily for the brazilian cannoneers to simply turn their cannons towards the swamp

and then make it hell on earth within a few shots of grape shot. The swamp became so clogged with dead bodies, it impeded men behind them, creating a corpse seawall of sorts. Add a corpse seawall to our corpse infrastructure list. I don't know if we already had a seawall or not. Build back better bodies. Other advancing forces found that, oh God, my musket doesn't work. Here's your lions led by donkeys PSA.

Swamps and gunpowder do not mix. No. Can't shoot a musket if it's wet. So soldiers had to resort to using their muskets as clubs, as many of them had not been issued bayonets on the right flank. Paraguayan Calvary fared slightly better, at least at first until the Argentine artillery was then turned on them, turning them into a horse and human chunky pasta sauce mixture. Though,

as the lines kept smashing into one another during the attack, artillery could hardly pick out friend from foe. So they just shot them both without aiming. Great. In the another during the attack, artillery could hardly pick out friend from foe, so they just shot them both without aiming. Great. In the middle of the attack, Paraguayan forces charge out their positions, singing the national anthem, only to be greeted by hails of canister shot from Allied cannons,

which silenced their singing pretty rapidly. One Allied soldier remembers men and horses being torn apart and their limbs being thrown through the air, waves of blood raining down on allied soldiers as they man their posts. Right. By 4 PM, the battle was over. An allied soldier described what remained as quote repugnant with a mutilated

corpses and disemboweled horses over the entire horizon. So many dead bodies, man and animal alike, were on the ground in pieces or in whole that it was impossible to not step on something that was once alive. Lopez reported this as a victory to the state newspaper. It's not! It's not! We did it!

But the fact was that his army had been annihilated. Of the 26,000 men he had sent into battle, a full 13,000 were casualties, half of whom were dead, and the medicine being what it was, the wounded would eventually also die.

So many Paraguayan dead were left in the battlefield that the Allies weren't sure what to do with them all. As one Allied officer said, quote, the Allies buried some of their own dead, but then they heaped up all the Paraguayan corpses in alternating layers of wood in piles from 50

to 100 and then burnt them they complained that the Paraguayans were so lean that they would not earn from starvation they would simply mummify no thank you the allies assumed seeing the old and young boys in the Paraguayan ranks they had just

massacred that the war would be over. I mean, seriously, what else could he fucking throw at us? He's got to be giving up. Nope. In their mind, they have to be losing their will to fight, but they were shocked that this was not the case. Despite starving to death and being riddled with disease,

the shell of an army that Lopez had sent into battle still had incredible, nearly unbreaking morale. POWs begged their captors to kill them rather than accept the shame of capture. Other POWs ate scraps of food out of the garbage and hummed the national anthem as doctors sawed off their mangled limbs. Despite being mauled and losing thousands, the Paraguayan soldiers still shit-talked and mocked allied soldiers from their trench lines

who were still only a few dozen yards away. This would be the last time the Paraguayans would launch an offensive during the war, which was still going to get much, much worse before it finally ended. And that is what we'll pick up next time.

Exciting. Yeah, this is three of five. Somehow this war continues. With mummy burn pits. Mummy burn pits. Shoeless soldiers. Fucking incredible. I have no idea.

As I was researching this, I'm like, like oh this has to be over after to ut it's like nope not even close to ut is the the tip of the human misery chamber that we're about to get into back to the misery mines yep so three episodes in liam how you feeling about the war of the triple lights's mummy burn pits come on man that's great mummy fucking burn pits draining horse guts there's humans everywhere and our enemies are now

deathless mummies we're using toddlers as cart animals things are going well for us yes the toddler quartermaster core Liam thank you so much for joining me on this particularly long episode plug your shows uh well there's your problem it's a leftist engineering disasters podcast with slides and jokes uh and 10 000 losses it's a philadelphia sports leftist podcast i'm also on this really

shitty podcast with a co-host who has ball problems named Lions Led by Donkeys. My balls are healthy. Fuck you. I will not hear such testicular slander. Everybody, thank you so much for listening to the show. If you like what we do here, consider leaving us a review. That's free. It helps us with the algorithms and stuff.

If you like the show enough to give us a dollar, you bonus stuff uh discord bonus episodes stuff like that and until next time avoid the mummy burn pit avoid the mummy burn pits