Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 213 - The War of the Triple Alliance Part 4: Death Funnel

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Part 4/5 Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys 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.

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities

like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the Legion of the Old Crow Lit by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe and trapped with me in the content mine somewhere in the Paraguayan jungle is Liam. Hello, Liam. Fuck you, man. I've been here for two weeks with Nick. It's like that episode of Archer where they got fucking stuck in the jungle. I'm Archer.

Nick is a combination of Ray and Cyril. I've been lugging him up mountains for the last two weeks. Fitzcarraldo-ing Nick through the jungle. Yes. Now I actually can't help but to see Nick as a very large ship and you as Werner Herzog.

This is a very convoluted intro. Fuck. This is certainly not a podcast. We've had to attempt to record twice due to a computer crash. And we're on part four of the War of the Triple Alliance. If you have not listened to the previous three parts, what are you doing? Turn around and listen to the other three hours or so worth of podcast before you end up here. Or don't and be very confused.

It's a free world. Yeah, just do whatever you want to do. It actually happened with our Russo-Japanese War series. Everybody just listens to part three because it's about the dumb naval mission. And I get that. You could actually listen to that one in a vacuum. I don't know if there's any part of that that you could do that that in this this series i don't know do whatever you want i don't care no this matters i don't care uh i feel that so liam when we left off last time um the allied

forces of brazil uruguay and argentina crushed the paraguayan counter-attack at the battle of tuyiti uh President Solano Lopez, a man who once fancied himself as the future emperor of the plate and the South American Napoleon, retreated, leaving a field of his own dead in his wake and killing all future offensive Paraguayan plans to end the war. This is where I tell you the part where the allies, seeing the road wide open in front of them, seize the opportunity, launching a counterattack, catching Lopez in his retreat, destroying what was left of his mostly malnourished and diseased army and marching straight to the Paraguayan capital, ending the war. All right. Good podcast.

See you next week, everybody. Yeah, that's part four. We will see you next week. This has been an exhaustive two minute long show. Have a good one, guys. Yeah, but that didn't happen. Of course, that didn't happen. If someone ended the war, I mean, I wouldn't say they fought this war competently or anything.

Whatever it is, Joe. But if they ended the war in such a normal military maneuver, that would actually be shocking for what happens in this war? Because that does not happen. The allies just kind of sat there. Lopez escaped and the allies lost the chance to end the war right then and there. And I don't want to say they're incredibly stupid for not jumping on this opportunity. There's a good chance they didn't actually know how much of an opportunity they had. And there's also a very big question if they even had the capability of launching a largely unplanned spur-of-the-moment wide-scale counteroffensive. They still hadn't quite figured out how to do reconnaissance. So I'm going to go on a limb here and say they did not have the ability to snuff out Solano Lopez right here and now.

Now, in retrospect, it's clear that time was on the ally side here and they would grow stronger while the Paraguayans would consequently become weaker and weaker. Remember, they're still under blockade. The country is under an iron grip of a blockade. The country is under a iron grip of a blockade with the combined effects of all of the disease and starvation sweeping through the Paraguayan armed forces and then trickling down into society as a whole.

On top of one of the most thorough conscriptions that you could possibly have outside of conscripting women, which they haven't done. Paraguay was not in a good spot. No, as we're going to learn. Yeah, this spot only gets worse. Yeah, I said the thing.

Play the air horn. It's going to get consistently worse. Now, the allies, while it is true, they will continue to get stronger. That's really only because they're fighting someone like Solano Lopez. And if they were fighting anybody with military competence or even the same level of manpower pools to draw from, the allies would be shattered. But they're picking on Paraguay. So not to say that Solano Lopez did not start this whole fucking problem, but still. However, this idea of starving Paraguay out was not the field was killing his soldiers too, like thousands all the time. Not to mention the massive strain it's having on the Argentine and Brazilian economies.

And Uruguay is still largely a pile of rubble from constant war. So this prolonging of the war was not on the Allied commander's mind. He certainly didn't want to like besiege an entire country he simply lacked the ability to take advantage and launch a counter operation and furthermore it seemed like they really understood that they couldn't really manage a large-scale military invasion of paraguay they're like i don't think we could fucking do this guys everybody has typhus you can do that if you're not a pussy're like, I don't think we could fucking do this guys. Everybody has typhus. You can do that if you're not a pussy. Let's go. Don't be a bitch. You can do it.

Dragging your compatriots. Because there is some on-the-job training going on here in regards to military command and small unit leadership, but they still have no logistical organization to carry their half-dead diseased asses across the finish line remember we last episode we talked about how thoroughly their

formations fell apart when they're just marching unopposed so then they get lost after what like a mile or something in some cases even when they're not lost like they could know exactly where they're going like oh fuck everybody died of like sudden onset smallpox or some shit um and any advance was going to be very very hard uh there are river forts which is kind of the backbone of the paraguayan defensive structure uh and uh that lined their their route of advance to the river because that's the the i guess you could consider them the highways of paraguay there's no roads through this frontier area the easiest way to to move is via river so there's river forts everywhere

and admiral uh tamandare who is the brazilian uh naval commander and therefore the allied naval commander because brazil does have the strongest navy refused to move forward uh unless he had army support uh when attacking these forts. Understandably. Yeah, I get that. Though Tom Indare is a bit of a coward to use a word strongly, mostly because he's doing that

because he's hoping the war ends before he has to send his navy in. He doesn't want to lose his navy. And like, well, if I was going to give him the most charitable explanation of that is he doesn't want to lose his sailors, but that's not what it is. He just doesn't want to do it. He doesn't want to do it.

And more importantly, losing an ironclad or something in combat would make him fucking look bad. So he was purposefully slowing down offensive operations, even if it does sound tactically sound where he needs ground support, which he would. The problem is, of course, is that nobody knew how to do that. Nobody was schooled in the concept of combined arms warfare with the riverine navy. They're flipping open a book that's all in crayon. Nobody knows how to do this, Tom and Dara. So rather than do that, the allied soldiers simply settled into their positions the brazilian nicknamed the sector uh that they were stuck in the lina negra or the black line now this could be because the uh the estero which is like the river um had black clay uh but it's more likely because of they were literally surrounded by death. Oh,

the forward trenches. Yeah. So like you could consider like the, the line of Negra being the, the black mud, which sure, they probably were all caked in disgusting black mud. Uh,

but also everything smelled like a fucking graveyard, but also corpses. Yeah. Um, like the forward trenches ran through, the the undergrowth and at times were so close to the paraguayans they literally shit talked to one another and occasionally would throw bottles and trash back and forth good so that's my kind of warfare especially because everybody speaks the same language so like this shit talking transmission is very very easy um

and uh like the paraguayans were almost consistently noted for not... You know how in situations like this in other wars, whether it be World War II or World War I, World War II, even the Spanish Civil War, where soldiers would be stationed so close to one another, they'd kind of have an agreement that you wouldn't shoot at one another unless they were given orders because everybody's just trying to live. The allies note that the Paraguayans would always

fucking shoot at them. Right. And that kind of goes into why this war is kind of championed in Paraguay to this day is that the Paraguayan soldiers truly did have nearly unbreakable discipline. No matter how many losses and how bad things got,

they never really were like depressed or like falling apart at the seams these motherfuckers don't have shoes or food and they're shitting out blood and they're like look an enemy and they take a shot at them and the the allies in comparison absolutely do not want to be there uh they're like i'm not in like because you could frame this before as like well they're invading brazil they're invading argentina like we have to defend our homeland but now they're in paraguay like man this fucking blows and i'm covered in black mud and poop yeah how much of this is mud how much of this is blood and how much of this is shit uh good news that's the fun. We called it the slurry.

So like, and these trenches were almost always flooded. There was rotted bodies everywhere and it's May. So it's hot. It's humid. Everything smells like putrid swamps and rotting corpses, which by the way, those swamps were also choked with the dead.

So it was like a disease pit they were all living in. So they were literally up to their ankles in death and sickness for hours staring off into the distance. And the only thing that really separated them from this existence is artillery bombardments, which the Paraguayans did almost constantly, which would then be returned by the Allies. Although the Paraguayan gunners were considered much better. But everybody was so dug in that these artillery

bombardments really did nothing other than just keep you awake. Be vaguely annoying. I should point out that at this point, Uruguayan President Flores, the man who has nearly died countless times, also nearly died again. This guy loves almost eating it. This time it seemed like every time he went to a different bunker or dugout, it would be immediately hit by artillery.

He was blown up multiple times. And each time he escaped death only by inches. And I'm honestly not sure if this is good or bad luck anymore uh i'm sure it sucked to be the people that had to be like around him right now lopez gladly made use of this month uh where everybody was stuck on the black line um to recuperate the best he could now i use the term the best he could. Now, I use the term the best he could very, very heavily here because there's no recuperation going on in Paraguay anymore. He replaced his losses,

though the new recruits were not the best. So they were either too young, too old, or too handicapped in some way to be considered soldiers to anybody with working eyes. Though, good news, at this point, all of the recruiters are probably also dead and the new recruiters are blind.

So, you know, it works out. You know. Yeah. As soon as their training was over, which boiled down to pretty much just teaching them how to shoot and reload a musket. So before, the training was very, very abbreviated for the conscription purposes.

That was abbreviated even further and it's lopez had a brilliant plan to fix this like japanese pilots at the end of the war abbreviated or like way more um so these guys literally uh the best i could tell at best they were taught how to fire and load a musket. Though that was not always the case. They weren't really taught how to march, which is important in this kind of warfare. They weren't really taught how to do anything other than like, here's how you fire a gun. Listen to the guy in the fancy hat.

And Lopez had something of a brilliant plan to make up for this gap in training. And it's something that's so awful i think it's something straight out of warhammer if i didn't see this out of a fucking like out of an actual history book so as soon as these replacements got to the forward units he would immediately order those units to attack he believed that combat experience was more important than actual training uh okay so yeah uh like fucking god emperor solano lopez of warhammer 40k uh like that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard uh in four and four plus years of doing this show like even in wars where people weren't really

getting training it was under the understanding that we simply do not have time. They didn't try to church it up with going and getting mustard gassed is better than actually learning marksmanship. It's like, we don't have the bullets or the time to train you. Hopefully, you pick up some shit along the way. Like the Iran-Iraq war comes into mind. I was going to say, just watch Enemy at the Gates. It's fine. Don't even get me fucking started on

that goddamn movie it's a good movie no it's not it's not yes it is fuck you i will die on this goddamn hill it's a good movie the love triangle is very erotic you know it's good not doing this i'm not doing i will not be baited uh you i don't know i feel like you've already been i've already been baited yeah i've already won yeah like it's fine but so like i i honestly i i i'm stretching my mind thinking of something if i've heard a general think of something this stupid before sorry a marshall president think of something this stupid show some respect joe now this didn't just go for new recruits that was important for their training remember? Lopez ordered constant probing and raiding attacks, assuming that if the allies were...

Oh, I hate a probing and raiding attack. We love a good probe. Assuming that if the allies were constantly bloodied, that they would eventually get sick of this shit and go home. Like, he was slowly developing his own concept of attrition warfare, though he was losing. Oh. Like, all he was doing was throwing... Oh man, why not warfare, though he was losing. Oh.

Like, all he was doing was throwing... Oh, man, why not? Yeah, he was throwing men into a meat grinder for nothing, and he had no replacements for them. Like, this kind of warfare would work if, say, Paraguay was Brazil, because you have a large pool of manpower. Endless dude, sure. Yeah. Paraguay did not.

They're already, like, they've scraped through the bottom of the barrel, picked up the weird mud that accumulates under a wet barrel, and then dug below that to where the ground is dry again. Shaking it and hoping a conscript comes out. Yeah. would occasionally take enemy positions, only to be immediately forced right back out of them due to being badly outnumbered. And not to mention their newest 80-year-old draftees or whatever, healing over from a heart attack in the middle of combat,

which that's not a joke. That happened. That's a shame. It was noted that one of the new draftees died in the midst of combat from like... I don't exactly remember what the word he used for it. Cause he didn't say heart attack, but he's like effectively a panic attack where he,

he like grabbed his chest and fell over because he was old. Like, no, a cannon shot made that old guy stroke the fuck out. So his plan was flawed as soon as he thought of it, because it required him to attack constantly. And attackers are always going to take more casualties than defenders however he's going to lose most of those occasionally he'll win a defensible spot but then he's forced to defend it against a group of more

dudes that have more people so every single time he did this he lost more men than he could replace meaning he is fighting a war of attrition against himself. Yes. He is... It might be the greatest cell phone that we've ever talked about. I've never heard of anybody launch a war of attrition that they feasibly could never win. Of course, the major wars of attrition that come to mind is like Vietnam or something.

But even that, if you wanted to truly commit to it, the United States had the ability to kill everyone in Vietnam. So if you really wanted to buy into that doctrine, they could win if they wanted to be the worst war criminals in recorded history. But in this situation, in this war

of attrition, it was impossible. He was never going to win. But of course, as we talked about, I believe in part two, he just wasn't listening just he wasn't listening. He wasn't listening. And he's like, Marshall, president, emperor, whatever. We simply have no men left in the country. We'll find more.

Okay. Easy peasy. Yeah. Arm those kids over there. And no, like they're at some point. Some defensive Berlin shit. I like it. There's kids as young as 12 already in the

ranks at this point. If you're a 12-year-old that looked kind of old, you're fucked. When I was 12, I looked like I might be 14 or 15. I'm 100% getting drafted in this situation. Especially if you're kind of tall and have all your fingers, you're definitely fucked.

The fingers weren't a deal-breaker. Congratulations.'re gonna go die for president solano lopez in like 15 minutes as soon as your commanding officer coughs on you and you shit out your own lungs saves white now this included weird plans to dig secret trenches into the middle of the night around enemy lines to get within reach of allied headquarters And this isn't unheard of. Like, uh, mine warfare is a thing. Uh, it has been like the U S did it, or, uh,

the Confederates did it. Uh, the U S did it in the civil war. Um, digging mines. One, right. That happened.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh, mine warfare was huge during, uh, the Western front of world war one. You dig a mine, you either spring out or whatever.

I mean, fuck Hamas does mine warfare. Right. Um, uh one, you dig a mine, you either spring out or whatever. I mean, fuck Hamas does mine warfare. Right. You either dig a mine, plant a fuckload of explosives and get out, or you use it for infiltration. It's nothing new. And this plan almost worked,

but when the Brazilians saw what they were doing, because remember they're very close together and you can hear people digging under you. They launched an attack, assuming the outnumbered Paraguayans would see that their plan had failed and would retreat. But instead, they fought tooth and nail for hours.

Hundreds more died when the allies chased them off. And even then, they didn't slow Lopez down. Adhering to the tried and true throw enough shit to the wall and see what sticks concept of warfare, he just kept sending patrols in to harass the allies. All of them were fended off, but it made the allied soldiers paranoid.

At this point, this is not only attrition warfare, but also guerrilla warfare. These aren't human wave attacks. These are small groups of infiltrators low crawling through the mud for hours in the middle of the night to get a couple shots off. Because remember, these are fucking muskets it's not like you could sneak up with a machine gun and like ambush an argentine patrol or whatever right they're crawling through shit corpses and

blood for fucking hours to fire once and then scamper off into the night that seems uh i mean it didn't work enjoyable yeah if somebody told me to do that i'm like well it's time for me to saw my own leg off saves weight joe makes you more aerodynamic um but this did have the unintended effect i believe i don't think lopez was this for thinking to think that this is going to happen that it made every allied position deeply paranoid whenever they heard like rustling in the bushes like oh fuck the paraguayans are back and it would open fire there's like eight of them it's okay i mean to be fair these small groups of paraguayans may not have been the greatest trained may not have been um clothed in any way at this point. But boy, did they

have heart. Yeah, I mean, they did. They had discipline. They knew how to fire a gun, and they were not going to retreat. I mean, the same couldn't be said for the Allies. If the Allies had the option to run and not fight, they would take it. Unless it was

like a big set-piece battle, they had no problem abandoning a position there's no real incentive to fight they have no incentive to fight most these guys aren't even being paid anymore uh and they knew that there'd be some counter offensive to take it back so they didn't care so you know they were deeply paranoid that there was like a bush full of starving 10 year olds armed to the teeth coming for their blood. So if something moved in the night, they'd shoot at it. And most of the time, it was their own people.

Eventually, the Allies realized every time they chased off the Paraguayans, they would just come back. They needed to stop this constant raiding because it was getting annoying. It was making supply hard. Getting constantly punched in the face is annoying, even if it's a jab. Sure. That stands to reason.

So they came up with a plan to assault the Paraguayan rear trench, which guarded the passage across the Estero called the Boqueron. The Boqueron was a channel some 40 yards across, which led directly down towards the trench that they were commanding all of this from. So the idea was smash through that, take out the rear trench. They'll have to pull back. They won't be able to continuously do this anymore. Sure.

Now, this is manned by three cannons and hundreds of men behind fortifications of earth and tree trunks with a ditch in front of it. A tree trunk might not sound like a whole lot, but it's effectively bulletproof. They're firing muskets at one another. Even now, a tree trunk is decent cover. And the ditch in front meant that as they assaulted, the defenders would have the high ground. So it's a very defensible position.

Now, from behind this, the Paraguayans could lay down nearly uncontested fire. On either side was dense, unpassable undergrowth. And this meant that the attacking allies were compressed together in a very, very short front. And they were given no option. I don't like that.

But to launch a frontal assault against a fortified position, which, fun fact, you don't want to do that. No. The Allied commander called it a, quote, funnel of death. At a distance of 400 yards. You thought butt chugging was unfortunate. Oh, that's the true funnel of death at a distance of 400 yards but chugging was unfortunate oh that's the true funnel of death now it at a distance of 400 yards a charge was ordered amongst the allies directly into the paraguayan line those who survived the volley of fire soon found themselves smashed up against the fortifications engaged in frantic hand-to-hand combat the paraguayans fought with everything they had within arm's reach because remember many of them were not issued bayonets

right not able to reload their muskets quickly enough they threw musket balls and sand and mud at the attackers they kicked punched stabbed and latched on to the allies with their goddamn teeth to fight them off yes we're back to teeth fighting people often say hand-to-hand combat i prefer teeth to teeth oh yeah oh yeah that's the good shit i mean you have at this point you have to hope of all the diseases that your body is racked with if you're a paraguayan soldier you don't also have scurvy so like you bite into some of your teeth just bend thank you joe you are so helpful if i ever told you that one man was using a discarded cannonball as a bludgeoning tool how just picking it up and caving people's heads in with it okay yeah fair enough major

ivanofsky which if you notice that name is decidedly not southern american was actually polish uh and was uh because there's a lot of europeans that play here as well as there always is in in war during this period it's like um during napoleon's invasion of russia the operative uh language of the russian army was actually french uh like i'll get you man weird shit happens but he's he's polish and uh he had taught himself spanish uh not well he was he was leading his argentine battalion from the front and he turned and urged his men on though the joke amongst his men was his spanish was so bad nobody could understand what he was saying so they saw an angry polish guy waving a sword around the paraguayan soldiers finally fell back with the allies collapsing into their position out of exhaustion assuming that they had broken the back of the paraguayans and they had won the

battle unfortunately for them they seemed to have not learned how to fight paraguayans yet and the counter-attack came within hours and they were caught sitting crisscross applesauce in the trenches eating their lunch i like that they were sitting crisscross applesauce in the trenches eating their lunch. I like that they were sitting crisscross applesauce. Feel bad. After all of that fighting, they were almost immediately driven out and back to their lines because at this point they had no fight left

and they're like, fine, you can have it. Leave us alone. Goodbye. Flores insisted another attack be launched, with a colonel in charge knowing how fucking stupid that was but powerless to stop it he agreed saluting Flores and saying quote goodbye forever now the soldiers charged once again across the funnel of death

already littered with their own dead and dying directly into the Paraguayan guns who shot them to shit once again this time they didn't stand a chance and barely anybody even made it to the defenses. In the end of these, of this battle, which would become known as the battle of the Boca Ron,

it would cost the allies 3000 men for no gain. Hell yeah, dude. So Lopez won a battle. Uh, he just happened to not be in command of it or even remotely nearby. By August of 1866, the Allies had been in Paraguayan territory

for four months and had done virtually nothing other than hemorrhage bodies. It was clear that simply camping out there and waiting for Lopez to see he wasn't going to win was not going to work. And during this time,

I should point out, negotiations are ongoing, but they're going nowhere. Apparently. This is mostly for the reason that the Allies' main goal to end the war was, remember, to unseat Lopez. Right. And Lopez, it turns out, is not a fan of that stipulation.

Ah. Even European powers are getting involved, like America, the English, the French are all like, you guys should really cut this shit out. It's not really doing anything. Also, it's hurting your exports, and we're not fans of that. Oh, no. And they don't really go far with it because, I mean,

the main stipulation is complete surrender by Lopez, at which point Lopez would almost certainly be shot. Though I believe it was one of the neighboring countries, Belize or something, was like, okay, well, Lopez could come here. And Lopez was like, no, fuck you. I'm staying. So that's a pretty big hitching point. Now, they realized that Lopez was not going to surrender.

And Miterra insisted the offensive couldn't go on because the allies lacked horses to move anything, which actually was not wrong. anything, which actually was not wrong. In a war council meeting in 30 May, in response to Flores' criticisms at the time and the lack of progress of the war, he pointed out that the Argentine cavalry strength of 1,700 men had only 600 horses, and those horses were not in good health, and most of them would probably die soon. While the Brazilians only had 200 to 300 mounted cavalry, and the Uruguayans had none.. Now this is actually just their mounted war horses. This is not draft animals like they would need to move all the things you need to fight a war. That's because most of their draft animals were dead, dying, or eaten. Mr. Ed.

Mr. Ed's fucking going down. He's going to eat some Tesco beef. Now the Argentine government put an order out to forcefully requisition from their own population whose governors had ignored orders recently to hand over any animals that they had that could be used for the war effort. And if you're...

If you remember back to how we explained the Argentine government structure, it's really easy for them to just ignore these orders or lie. Like, oh, yeah, we actually have a thousand horses, but here's 30. And they did the same thing for conscription as well. Like the provincial governors were not super close knit with the central government. And the provincial governors were still refusing to work with them. Out of an order for 1,700 men, they only sent

173. That's off, man. Yeah, they were doing that with everything too. Like, requisition for food? Here, have a hamburger and fuck off. Requisition for a horse? Here's a picture of a horse. Use your imagination.

While all of this was going on, internal bickering between allied commanders slowed everything down even worse, as someone was trying to get the Brazilian Navy to do their job and attack the river force, and Tomandare was still refusing to do that. Then, because Lopez would try anything once, no matter how insane it was, he decided to play the wily coyote

card. Aided by a British chemist and Polish engineer that he had kidnapped and forced into slavery, they began slapping together torpedoes. Now, these were literal... Remember the canoes, the armed canoes? I do remember the canoes. These are kind of like those canoes,

but they're loaded down with explosives and set off down the river to harass the enemy navy. Now, they would explode on contact sometimes. Other times, they'd have a timed fuse. Suicide bomb canoe. Love it. Well, there's nobody in them. So nobody's becoming the Paraguayan martyr. But they did send these canoes flowing down the river at people.

And these things were hilariously unstable. I mean, this is late 1800s chemistry we're talking about. They occasionally blew up their own handlers. Though every once in a while they did hit their target. The Brazilians figured out that this is actually a really easy way to handle these because their hope was to fuck up the blockade, fuck up the Brazilian Navy, do something. Because they had lost the ability to strike out at them. Right. So the Brazilians figured out a really easy way to deal with these canoes. Because remember, they're powered

by the river current. They're just like kicked down the river. They didn't move very fast. So sailors would paddle out on perimeter boats and just kind of like poke them with a stick and it would send them off course. Oh, okay. I mean, it's really hard to call something like a funny or cool weapon

when it can be defeated by a conscript with a stick. But, you know, nobody sees a counter poke coming, I suppose. They were defeated by a Facebook feature. That's tough. That's a tough way to go, man. Though, going back to your idea of Canoe Suicide Bombers, that did actually happen on accident one time. Oh. And going back to your idea of canoe suicide bombers, that did actually happen on accident one time. Oh,

and going back to your comment about Archer, this was done by an American scientist known only as Kruger. Oh, blended. Now he attached a pole with an explosive on it to a regular canoe with the idea of ramming an enemy ship with it. Now this would require it to be aimed, which means he would have to paddle it in

and then dive out to safety. That sounds insane. And Lopez actually did shoot this idea down for being too fucking stupid. He's like, that seems like it won't work. You probably shouldn't waste your time. You're more useful doing other things like building my

Wiley Coyote canoes that are defeated with a stick but kruger insisted that it worked uh and he on his own jumped in his canoe and set off for his first and only mission because it blew up on its own when he hit a wave yeah he killed only himself and after this the paraguayans stuck to the tried and true fire ships uh which you know work a little better finally to get themselves out of the stalemate the allies devise an attack on the town of cruzu now this is a garrison of the main paraguayan battery of artillery and they would load around 6 000 soldiers onto the brazilian ironclads and after bombardment they would invade the men landed uh without much of a problem unsure which is uh you know normally better than they have been doing

these things right as soon as they did uh the ship the rio de janeiro was hit by one of those insane torpedoes uh and it killed most of its crew. So, whoops. That is the way the cookie crumbles, unfortunately. Imagine being infantry and being like, kick the shore. Like, don't worry, we'll support you as it explodes behind you like an action movie. Right. Now, knowing the Paraguayan tendency to reinforce positions way beyond the point of purpose, the Allies got behind their positions in the battery and dug a trench to fend off any incoming soldiers because they knew that once they settled down into a piecemeal battle, they would just be harassed constantly by guerrilla bands of Paraguayans who refused to retreat. Sure.

Then when the Paraguayan saw this, they decided to light the bushes on fire. Oh, yeah. Now, this is a good idea in theory burning out an enemy is something that's worked before unfortunately this is a plan that's only half thought up nobody thought to test the wind direction first oh so they set themselves on fire now the the wildfire burned right back towards them uh which forced them to run away. However, once again, someone forgot the scaling ladders. So the Allied assault on that battery was a lot harder than it should have been. Instead of sticking around and fighting the Paraguayan 10th Battalion, seeing that the Brazilians had come up on their flanks, decided that the shit's lost.

It's time to bounce. Right. Also, I imagine accidentally lighting yourself on fire is quite demoralizing yeah what would that uh the rest of the garrison stuck around and fought uh the rest of the garrison being not members of the 10th battalion and they decided to stick around and fight and they lost 700 men and their failed and futile defense it was very stupid this goes back to last episode where i pointed out that that Lopez wanted all of these places to fight until the last man rather than form a large functioning defense. Each one was going to be like an Alamo, which not a good idea.

Now, finally, the allies had launched an attack and succeeded. But again, they failed to push their advantage and said, just sat there content with their win. sat there content with their win in front of them was kuru piety the final position before the main paraguayan fortress of uh humita which was the base and linchpin of the country's organized defense like this is such an important fortress that lopez himself spent a lot of fucking time there um it was a fortress lopez lopez believed to be completely and totally unassailable mostly because yeah you know where that goes. Mostly because he had been paying attention to the fact that during his rule,

it had largely fallen into disrepair as modern military technology caught up with the concept of building forts. This fault falls on him and his dad, because if you remember, they were both stealing all the fucking money the country had. Right.

And Huma Ita had largely been left in the dustbin of history. It's a lot like those Belgian forts during World War I. They're like, aha, these are built to withstand anything. And then the Germans just rolled up like a siege cannon and destroyed it in an hour. A lot of living in the past here. Now, Kuru Paiti was completely and totally undefended and they could have just rolled right in but the allies didn't uh and this would end up royally fucking them meanwhile lopez reacted to this loss with the level headiness and poise you would expect from him colonel yamina is the commander of the 10th batt, and his deputy were demoted to sergeant, which is weird.

Did the demotions work that way? While other officers had to draw lots to decide who would be executed. Fuck! Half of them were shot, as an example, to the others, and their survivors were reduced in ranks. To further drive the message home, the battalion itself, the

enlisted men, were subject to decimation. One out of every ten, right? Yes. For people that don't remember, we've talked about decimation before on this show. That is, one man in every ten would draw a lot. The one with the short lot would be taken from that group of ten and be executed by the other nine. Normally by being beaten to death.

I like it. Yeah, it's not good. Of course, the motivating factor behind this is if you refuse to take part, all 10 of you would die. After he's done being a massive asshole, he ordered the defensive crew of Piety to be constructed, assuming he only had a few days before the Allies showed up.

Instead, they gave him three weeks, at which time he turned the area into a fortress. The attack was scheduled for the 17th, and the fleet was prepared. Allied reinforcements had been brought ashore, so soon 20,000 Brazilian-Argentine troops were ready for action. However, yet again, the weather intervened. Although the morning was dry and the armies were ready to head out, there was no sign of movement from the fleet, which was supposed to transport them. Mitter, curious of what the hell was going on, was informed by Tamandare that he felt rain in the air. What?

Yeah, so he refused to move. Because fighting in the rain back then was a bad idea. Like, water is bad for powder. If you can help it, you're not going to launch an offensive action while it's raining outside. And as weird as this is, and I,

when I was reading this, I assumed he was just being a dick again. He was actually right. And a torrential downpour started almost immediately after him would last three days. The attack was rescheduled for the 22nd and it was, they pushed it back that far because it gave the ground enough time to dry. Wet ground is bad for cannons.

It will just like swallow a cannonball uh not all of these are exploding cannonballs yet like they're still the old timey ones that bounce across the ground and rip people's legs off and shit uh so if the ground's wet they just go and get stuck and do nothing now it's also makes it harder for men to march etc etc wetness bad thank Wetness. Bad. Thank you, Ben Shapiro. Doctor bad. Now his wife's the doctor, right? Yeah, yeah. He's just a internet troll. Now, on the 22nd, three Brazilian ironclads moved closer and began shelling the enemy positions. Infantry commanders immediately saw the problem with the unfolding plan. The Allied commanders had given Taman Dari orders to blast the Paraguayan positions

to reduce the huge amount of obstacles and entrenchments had been made in front of them like not only had they built fortifications they built infantry obstacles like huge uh groups of branches and logs and ditches that these because you they would easily be able to get over them but it makes you break up your formations in order to do so. Sure. So it's a huge pain in the ass. The idea was, obviously, the Brazilian Navy would blow those things up, but also enemy soldiers. However, that didn't exactly work because Tomandare didn't actually have the ability to guide in his cannon fire. He could not see what he was shooting at.

Oh, delightful. And therefore, he could not see what he was shooting at. Oh, delightful. He could not see if he was hitting anything. And there's no communication method where a forward observer would be able to tell him because those weren't a thing yet. Not for like naval gunfire and stuff. So not to mention, the main reason for this is like,

well, they're infantry support. Why don't they have optics? They're built for fucking river combat. They have no usage for long range optics. Right. their infantry support why don't they have optics they're built for fucking river combat they don't they have no usage for long-range optics right so they're just kind of like lobbing things off into the distance and tom and dairy tom and dari figured for the best yeah he figured well i've been shooting at him for an hour that should be good and then signaled with flags to the infantry we out and then like it's your turn now.

And then the artillery battery on land opened fire to cover their assault. Mitterre discovered with horror that Tom and Daria had ranged the guns, the fleet's guns completely incorrectly. And every shot he had fired

had landed short and hadn't even touched the enemy defenses. Oh, terrific work, bud. The allies were drawn up and ready to attack just under a mile away from the Curapati main trench line. And the Brazilians were on the left

under the command of General Porto Alegre. And the Argentines were on the center and right. On the Brazilian side, nearest to the river, there was a fair amount of bushes, which were hard to get through. These aren't like, it's like jungle and shit it's hard for me to to understand how thick foliage has to be in order you can't get through it uh but they can't cause a northern france type of deal yeah yeah yeah they can't just like lower

a shoulder and plow through this shit um but it did give them um cover and protection or concealment rather it wouldn't stop any bullets, but also the Paraguayan defenders wouldn't be able to see them coming. As for the Argentines, on the other hand, their ground was wide open. No cover, no concealment,

and the second they left camp, they were immediately exposed to fire from the Paraguayan artillery and muskets, which had been ranged incorrectly. These fucking idiots, dude. Jesus Christ. Some of the men were weighed down with ladders, which they did bring this time.

Getting better. These were finally brought to scale earthworks, which the Paraguayans had dug, and something called a fascine, which was a bundle of sticks for filling flooded ditches. So the idea was you chuck these down, they become a bridge,

like a pontoon bridge. You throw them down, soldiers can cross it. The soldiers have been given so much gear to carry that they were doubled over. Now they were heavy. These remember, these guys are also sick, kind of malnourished too.

So they couldn't really see where they were heavy. Remember, these guys are also sick, kind of malnourished, too. So they couldn't really see where they were going. The advancing columns broke up almost immediately upon running into the various obstacles put in their way, including trenches, piles of discarded trees, rocks, etc. Many died while trying to force their way across all of this shit while under direct fire from the Paraguayan trench line. They also discovered that the fascines floated on top of the ditches uh rather than uh like hold them up like they were they were supposed to be long enough to cross across the entire thing sure they weren't they simply floated on the water therefore completely useless outstanding work so so men had to drop down into these flooded ditches which were chest high wade across and climb up on the other side, all while being shot at from only a few hundred yards away.

The attacking force had been completely broken up by the advance. Instead of large units of soldiers, they now clawed their way forward in small, pretty much random groups, totally unable to get orders from their officers or update them of what had happened. groups totally unable to get orders from their officers or update them of what had happened. When a line finally did manage to get formed, it got hammered with very, very well-directed Paraguayan artillery at close range until it simply ceased to exist. They know how to aim now.

Oh, the Paraguayans know how to aim. Oh my god, yeah, yeah. They are very good at gunnery. They have worse guns, but they're better with their worst guns. They make up for it with heart. Yeah, that's right. It's like Yu-Gi-Oh, the heart of the cards, but the heart of mass-scale industrial slaughter. Nailed it.

Yeah. Four kids call me, I'll write you a show. Only on the far left did the Brazilians find some success. They were protected by the thick brush, which allowed them to get close to the enemy trench without them being seen. It managed to advance with fewer casualties, and one small unit actually succeeded in breaking through the line, though because it was one unit, it immediately became isolated and all of its men were killed. A reserve brigade, which was sent in to follow up this assault, became confused when they saw their returning dismounted cavalry mistaking them for the enemy.

Oh, no. when they saw their returning dismounted cavalry mistaking them for the enemy. Oh, no. Instead of shooting at them, they thought that this was a counterattack. So seeing the cavalry running back through the lines, they're like, oh, fuck, turn around and ran. Oh, Jesus.

The slaughter went on for two hours before a general withdrawal order was given. But then due to some confusion, officers who hadn't heard the withdrawal order demanded their soldiers turn around and attack. So they did, only to be shot down some more. This went on for another two hours. Within the four hours, 4,000 men were dead on the attacking side.

The defenders only lost but 100 men. Jesus. Which is one of the most lopsided battles in this entire war. When all of this was over, the Paraguayans left their trenches and came out to scout around the Allied dead and wounded. They stripped them of their weapons and even their uniforms as many of these men were now literally

naked and their uniforms had rotted off their backs. For the Allies, the battle was a complete disaster, both militarily and politically. Every country involved in the Allied force immediately began blaming one another for their defeat, which is of course reflected

in how the militaries worked with one another, devolving into little more than arguments and some commanders not even being invited to meetings anymore to plan future war efforts. Which, if you're wondering, that sounds like it'd make future battles like this more commonplace. It would sound like that.

You're correct. Oh. Now, the blowback from this loss crippled the elected government of Brazil, and the liberal government fell, being replaced by a new one. Ran by a guy named Luis Alves de Lima y Silva, nicknamed the Iron Duke. Unfortunately for Lopez, the Duke was actually quite good at his job uh and at least the part where uh though the war part of it he immediately fired tamandari and another general named porte allegra who was just involved in that uh that battle and replaced them as well as becoming the supreme commander of brazilian troops himself however that didn't mean the war was about to jump off on a new footing. Instead, it ground down to a halt yet again, this time for an entire year

from September 1866 to August of 1867. For Lopez, there just wasn't anything he could do. His army was bleeding just sitting there and it was too weak to try to force the allies out from their positions. Not to mention his country was as a functioning entity able to support any war effort had ceased to be. The blockade on top of everything else had rendered Paraguay a ruined failed state. He was unable to feed his people or his army and the people hadn't dropped dead yet weren't very far from doing it. people hadn't dropped dead yet. Weren't very far from doing it though. That didn't stop him from still doing Lopez shit. Like, like ordering the foundries to scrape together whatever metal they could to

produce huge comically large cannons that could be fired back in further back into ally lines. Yes. Like, and these all had names. Like one was the general Diaz, which is a 32 pounder and the Cirillo, which carried a 150 pound shot. A 10 inch rifled cannon made from the melted, melted down metal of some church bells.

His name that Cristiano was brought up to shoot at the Brazilian Navy from afar. Now, not to be outdone here, the Allies sent up an observation balloon um this balloon immediately caught fire and killed its operator when some lose some uh the second crack at it worked though but uh when the paraguayans just started grass fires to cloud the air with smoke the the uh the balloon the balloonier i don't know what to call these guys um i think balloonier, I don't know what they call these guys. I think balloonier, yeah. Yeah, stopped using the balloon. He couldn't see anything. Huge camps of camp followers formed in the nearby towns.

Because remember, these are no longer mobile armies. They're garrisons at this point. So these towns swelled with camp followers. All of them are hustlers in various shapes and sizes. And they all formed a better functioning supply system for either army. So of course, this is where cholera started. Yup. It made its first appearance at the Paso de la Patria via a troop ship before spreading

through the armies of all the warring countries as well as the surrounding civilian populations. In the confined spaces of military camps, especially with the inadequate and polluted water supplies, it found a very comfortable breathing ground. In a particular outbreak, over 4,000 Allied soldiers died and people think it was possibly double that on the Paraguayan side. This number does not account for the several times

over level of deaths that were occurring within Paraguay as a whole from cholera. Nobody had medicine to treat it, but Lopez banned the use of the word cholera, so that cholera. Nobody had medicine to treat it, but Lopez banned the use of the word cholera, so that should fix it. Oh, that fixes it, yeah. That'll work. But the disease and the collective deprivation of war

and the blockade was burning through Paraguay. They forced contributions of clothing for soldiers, which is a scheme by which every family had to donate one shirt, which at the best of times, this was fine. People could get more clothes. No one has any shirts. Yeah, they've done this like six times over

now. There's no shirts left. The whole country's naked. Now, women were forced to work longer hours in the field, only to see that food that they were cultivating go straight to the army, leaving nothing for anybody else. Prices for everything skyrocketed beyond the means of normal people. The barrel was not only being scraped clean in terms

of soldiers, but for everything else. In October, the important functionaries of the state, including port officials, doctors, customs officers were all forced to go join the army. Even seven-year-olds were sent as ox drivers, at which point they'd eventually become old enough to be conscripted. In May of 1867, they sent draft officers to the local leper colony. Oh, Jesus. Christ almighty, dude. Here, have a musket.

Oh, your hand fell off. Oh, no. Saves weight. The supply of rifles, ammunition, and other war material was maintained by the British-led foundries. And I say British-led here. Those guys were not volunteers to work for the Paraguayan government. You actually can't blame the British for this one. They were effectively kidnapped and used as slaves.

But that meant that Paraguayans were never seriously short on that front. They didn't have food, but they had bullets. Well, you don't need both. Most of the industry remotely connected to the war effort was seized by

Lopez. Not necessarily become state-owned, but become lopez owned uh because he was the state right and the people within those foundries and and shops were forced to continue working there uh if you didn't like working conditions there's a wall for you uh so yeah he effectively enslaved the entire country if you i mean if you weren't enslaved by a conscription memo you were you are now you're enslaved at the found the foundry at the foundry the foundry conscription memo in other areas however there's much more serious problems

drugs and medicines for hospitals ran out pretty quickly this led to efforts of people to replace them using natural herbs and plants. And much like your weird cousin on Facebook who attempted to ward off COVID with essential oils, they died. Yeah, that'll happen. They ran out of salt, which sounds like a minor problem here for people. You needed to preserve meat. You needed to preserve meat, but you also needed to medically combat dehydration, which was endemic because there was a huge lack of clean water. The general lack of food was also an issue, but only because an endless diet of meat from captured animals and stuff kept people afloat for some time, which, going back to my scurvy joke, ended with an outbreak of scurvy.

Oh. which going back to my scurvy joke ended with an outbreak of scurvy oh now this too began to diminish you can't eat meat forever eventually these people like they're tall that's a jordan peterson dude you mean the glass of apple cider vinegar that sent him into hallucinations for a month apparently definitely not the zans yeah it wasn't the fucking Benzos that did that, bro. So their food collective methods require them to advance to enemy territory and steal their livestock. When you couldn't do that anymore, the meat ran out. So that, too, began to diminish. And the daily rations dropped off from one 80th of a steer per man to one 200th. So that's not anything.

The meat they were getting was also pretty rotten at this point, and Paraguay stopped paying its soldiers a long time ago. They actually ran out of paper money, and it became worthless. So they've also achieved hyperinflation. Oh, good. Yeah. Speaking of that, life within the

army went from bad to... Zimbabwe 80% speed run, baby. You know, this might be the one situation where I say Solano Lopez makes Robert Mugabe look good in comparison, but I don't feel comfortable saying that. No. Speaking of that, life within the army went from the stereotypically bad to the insane. Lopez was the only authority that could authorize the death penalty. Say the thing, Joe. And then it got worse.

God, even the siren sounds depressed. So Lopez himself, being the only marshal, was the only authority that could sign off on a death warrant, and he began to throw it around at people at random. A soldier caught sleeping on duty was shot.

The man on either side of him was, uh, was given 25 lashes and the corporal in charge of the, of that section, 40 lashes, the Sergeant 50 lashes and the officer that was sent to Lopez, uh, to be executed or reduced in rank.

This is for falling asleep. It's just like a chain reaction of everybody being brutalized. In one case, a Lieutenant named, uh, you Ben has was shot for daring to remark that the enemy seemed well dug in. And another name, uh,

private Candido Alaya was executed for repeating the trash talk of an enemy soldier that had been, that he had heard shouted across the trench line that Lopez was, quote, a pot-bellied old Indian. It's not even that serious, guy. No, he got clapped for that. Another was executed for leaving camp to visit his wife,

who had just given birth and was following them as a camp follower, and a lieutenant who refused to get up when he was woken up got clapped, too. Since this wasn't working for Lopez's liking, soon the families of soldiers would be punished along with them. Yay! Discipline.

Is this that good seventh generation shit? Yeah, something like that. In case you're wondering why the Paraguayan military had such ironclad discipline, it's because if you sneezed wrong, your family would die. Oh, okay. Yeah, alright. Meanwhile, in Argentina, President Mitterra was forced to return home as his country collapsed into another pseudo-civil

war as Providence is turned against the government, probably seeing an opening as their army died by the thousands and everybody was without food and horses and shit. He returned home with thousands of his soldiers to crush the rebellion, which he did succeed at doing, but Argentina wouldn't be able to commit as many

soldiers to the war going forward after that. Sure. In July 1887, the war is about to jump off once again. All prospects of the war ending without total defeat were discarded and all attempts to mediate it to a peaceful end, whether it be from European countries or anybody else,

were completely ignored by the Allies and also Lopez lopez wanted to end the war with him still being in charge of this pile of corpses he created right still the thing was that uh kind of got to appreciate his uh i don't know if i'd call it a can-do attitude at this point stick to it in this yeah but they still had to conquer the Paraguayan fortress of Humaita, which Mitterre meant to encircle. The Iron Duke, the most able military commander of the entire war by far, marched his men around into position without a problem. Though Lopez had ordered a guerrilla war to be launched against his supply lines as he went,

which they did try to do. These ambushes often involved thousands of men on either side and could almost be turned battles unto themselves, though they were all mostly indecisive. On one occasion, the Paraguayan succeeded in capturing a wagon full of paper, which is a highly prized item for them because they could not make that anymore in Paraguay. Sure. And unable to carry it all, they hid it in the undergrowth and on successful nights came out to bring as much paper back as possible outstanding just just to show their level of deprivation these guys were launching raids to smuggle paper though eventually the iron duke found it easy to lure them into traps because of how hungry and deprived they all were they

literally could just like throw a wagon full of like grain out and wait for the paraguayans to try to uh to to steal it and on one of these occasions the trap killed 500 paraguayan soldiers oh shit okay yeah he's smart like he's he's the only commander who actually learns like within a month of being ambushed in a supply columns being victimized he's like oh this should be easy to figure out just put some food out there and wait for them to come. And that's exactly what happened. Oh, God. Of course, being encircled would not stop Lopez from launching an attack.

And he sent 8,000 men to burst out from it. Stick to it if this, baby. His goal was to get close to the enemy's main supply point, loot their cannons, because he was having a shortage of those. And it would also make any siege of Humaita impossible if they have no cannons,

right? So simply burst through, raid their supply points, and jack some cannons. Easy peasy. Somehow this kind of worked. Oh God. The Paraguayans crept up in the middle of the night before the attack to

within close range of the Argentine forward positions. Before dawn the next morning, they snuck so quietly past the sentries that barely a shot was fired and most of them were dispatched by knife point. Since the distance between the two positions in the first trench was short, they were able to attack the next one by complete surprise

and with bayonets alone as to not wake up the rest of the camp. Sure. They took the second line of trenches with equal ease sending the Argentines and Brazilians retreating back across towards the main base, abandoning their guns. So in less than 15 minutes, the

Paraguayans had effectively accomplished their entire mission. And then everything went to shit. Their commanders immediately got overconfident and instead of returning to their base with their loot like they planned, they were like, we could just attack their supply point. So they rushed out to press the attack on the main supply point, totally ruining their sweet stealth mission

and abandoning their guns behind them. Because they were so quick to raid this supply point, they hadn't even made sure to secure the cannons first, just leaving them in place. As they burst into the supply area, all discipline broke down. Men abandoned their units and began looting anything that wasn't nailed down, though most of them are just trying to steal

food and clothes. Responding allied soldiers were able to shoot them with ease as they were too busy eating and drinking anything they could throw hands on. This entire episode caused Lopez another 2,000 men, and he, of course, called this a huge victory no they did not steal the cannons on their way

back out doesn't matter toss it out it's fine doesn't matter had steak because he's like getting shot in the face though like most of his victories it did not matter he was encircled at the fort and the allies were able to throw a chain across the river blocking the fort from

any resupply or reinforcement. Again, the stalemate sailed across and throughout the summer of 1867 and 1868, and would last into the winter. Mitter left the Allied army once again, forced to go home and deal with more messy Argentine politics, and overall command was finally given to the Iron Duke. Then in Februarybruary flores the uruguayan president was forced to step down you know because of everything and then was shot by a group of assassins of the original too soon now if you're keeping track at home the of the original national leaders of this war lopez was somehow the last one standing. I got you right where I

want you, bitches! Unfortunately for Lopez, however, the Iron Duke was a very good military commander, as we've already seen, and now he's a complete allied commander. And that meant this war was about to take on a whole different shape. The Brazilian

Navy stormed through the Paraguayan river defenses, made up of chains, torpedoes, and other obstacles without losing a ship. Because despite the ability to churn out ammo for muskets, the Paraguayan foundries could not make armor-piercing ammo for their cannons. So the Brazilians with their ironclads just kind of

got cannon drums fired against them and did nothing. Their regular cannonballs just smacked off uselessly in this uselessly in the side. Go listen to our iron clad episode for more. Um, it's a bonus episode.

I think. Yeah. Uh, go listen to that. Let's do the iron clad, just putting down the river and it was like shit bouncing off the side as they just rake them with cannon fire. As this is happening,

the army launched the attack as well, and this is where the Brazilians, in their attempt to modernize their army, had accidentally fucked themselves. Many of their new soldiers had been outfitted with state of the art Belgian-made guns, known as needle guns. Are you familiar with needle guns? I

am. I'm not going to go into them super deep because they're kind of considered a middle point between a musket and a modern bolt action rifle and they fucking suck now they jammed constantly or sometimes simply failed to work at all other times they exploded in their users faces uh so they somehow they're in a situation where a musket would be a better option um so after three attempts to capture the fort, many men simply discarded their new rifles and

picked up the old ass rifles from their dead enemies while others were forced to use their Belgian garbage rods as clubs. However, finally, the fort did fall. Before that happened, Lopez evacuated himself and ordered the government to be moved out of the capital to a town nine miles away.

This was not a voluntary move everyone was ordered to march inland with towards their new capital or be shot yeah all right that sounds about right yeah yeah good news everybody you're getting a new house or else now with the fort finally in allied hands that opened the river and before before long, the Brazilian Navy would be in port and at Sución. But now with their capital being shelled and López living on the run, the war would still somehow not

end. Solano López swore... We gotta make up for contact, baby. Solano López swore Paraguay would fight to the bitter end, and goddammit, he the bitter end. And God damn it. He fucking meant it. And that is where we'll pick up next week.

And the conclusion of the war of the triple alliance. And I promise you things will get much, much dumber before that. Everything's over. So we are now four parts in how you, how you, how you feeling about the war of the triple alliance? These people are all

morons and like what sucks is the one competent military commander at a national level is the iron duke and i'm calling the iron duke because i i don't feel like butchering his name every time i say it sure um is a bastard like politically he's awful of course yes why are we surprised i think shortly I think shortly after the war the triple alliance he leads like a military coup yeah he's not he's not good but you know in a

in a septic pond he's the turd that rides to the sir that rose to the surface yeah anyway Liam plug your shows listen to 10,000 losses and listen to well to Well, There's Your Problem. We just recorded a bonus episode yesterday. Death to the NCAA.

I can agree with that. And thank you, everybody, for listening to the show. If you think this show is worth your time and money, feel free to throw us a dollar on Patreon. You get bonus stuff. It keeps the show going. Helps us buy more things if if you don't that's fine it's your money use it as you see fit

but leaving a review is free and it helps us with algorithm reasons not entirely sure why but throw us a review on whatever your podcasting caster is that helps us a lot and until next time

needle guns suck