Behind the Bastards - Part One: Francisco Solano Lopez: The Worst Military Leader In Human History

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

This week Robert sits down with James Stout to weave the story of the worst military leader in human history: Francisco Solano Lopez. Also known as 'El supremo', he nearly annihilated his own country through sheer incompetence. Sources: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26494384?googleloggedin=true&seq=22 https://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2021/11/22/the-paraguayan-president-who-brought-his-country-to-military-catastrophe-part-1-francisco-solano-lopezs-earlier-life https://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2021/12/8/the-paraguayan-president-who-brought-his-country-to-military-catastrophe-part-2-the-start-of-the-war-of-the-triple-alliance#.YcJFwy2cZAY= https://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2021/12/23/the-paraguayan-president-who-brought-his-country-to-military-catastrophe-part-3-devastating-battles-for-both-sides#.Yd9N0i2cZAY= https://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2022/1/12/the-paraguayan-president-who-brought-his-country-to-military-catastrophe-part-4-how-the-war-ended#.Yd9N0i2cZAY= https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/war-of-the-triple-alliance-bloodbath-in-paraguay/ https://www.thecollector.com/francisco-solano-lopez-paraguayan-war/ https://countrystudies.us/paraguay/10.htm https://mitpressbookstore.mit.edu/book/9780742537552  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Also Media. Welcome back to Behind the Bastards. The podcast retell you everything you don't know about the very worst people in all of history. And we got a real bastard of a bastard for you this week. But before we get into that, let's introduce our guest, someone who's probably not a bastard. As far as I am aware, I legally have to say that. James Stout. Hey, James, how you doing?

I rub it. I'm great. I feel very welcome off to that. Dr. James Stout. Dr. James Stout. Dr. James doubt, yeah, I'm using it again. Yeah, I'm previously only used it for, you know, credit card companies and people who are rude to me. And James, bringing it back.

Bringing it back. James, you are currently the co-host of one among several that do the It Could Happen here, Daily New Show, also on Cool Zone that we host. And you have a new podcast coming out, something sexy and exciting. And did I say new? New. Yeah, new. Very exciting. Yeah, coming out on the 17th of August, where I have a good podcast.

are given away for free. It's called Natural Causes. And we're going to be talking about going outside, specifically, like, the politics of going outside, I guess, in 2026. That's a big deal. Beyond just touching grass. Yeah, it's just going to be me walking around. Why is, you know?

It's not. It's not a very calming podcast. It's just like an ASMR meditation app. James is a human. James shaming you for being on the internet. You just turn on the pocket. turn off your phone now. Go outside.

James, what are some early episodes folks can look out for? Yeah. So we're going to start, I think, with looking at a couple of things. I want to look at cyclospora, the cyclospora outbreak, which we've seen across the Midwest now, spreading further west. And what that can tell us about the rights of farm workers, about where our food comes from, and the people who decide if it's safe. We're going to talk about fire.

I am, yesterday I was in Spokane, Washington, when we record this. covering the fires there, both the wildland fires and the fires that came into town and spent a lot of time on the Colville Tribes Reservation and Spokane Tribe Reservation. A lot of those folks, I think, maybe got missed out of the big fire story when it went by the time it got into suburban areas,

but we're going to look at what we can learn from indigenous people about living with fire. I want to talk about how your raincoat could be putting little bits of plastic inside fish. And Havillina, that would be a fun one. I want to talk about Havillina Because they fucking hate golf, and so do I. So,

I like Havelina, but I mainly like eating them mixed with other more palatable meats. I'm a redneck meat connoisseur, you know, and I do miss the days of eating Havelina. If you know what you're doing, you can make a pretty decent sausage with that as one of the ingredients. Okay, I can see that. Yeah, it's like a, it's not a pig.

It's a peccary, but I'm sure it probably has some fat on it. It's close enough. Again, you usually mix it. You want them golf. finished if you're going to make sausage out of them, you know? Yeah. Or you mix it with, you know, some Jimmy Dean. You know, James, it's appropriate that you've got to show about going outside

because our subject for this week is a man who should never have gone outside. He kind of broke a family tradition by going outside and as a result destroyed his country. This is a fascinating dude. Have you ever heard of former dictator of Paraguay, Francisco Solano Lopez? Do you know who this guy is? I've heard the name, yeah, but I'm not infinitely for me. with the law, so this is exciting for me. Well, this is, what's interesting about him is we've had a lot of dictators, and we've had a lot

of dictators who started wars, and we've had a lot of dictators who started genocides, but we haven't yet had a dictator who accidentally did a genocide against his own people without meaning to while trying to carry out a successful war. And that's the story of Francisco Lopez. It's like one of the most complete as like a percentage of the total population genocides we've ever covered, and he does it entirely without meaning to, because. because he is so bad at running a war. It's a fascinating story of a guy who gets very convinced

that he's better at running an army than he is. And yeah, that's what we're talking about this week. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pastos survive the first bite?

Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode eight before you're done slicing the cucumber? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything.

I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality,

welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island to serve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport.

And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show's famously super accessible so you can easily. jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed, and Mary Steenberg. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. Our story begins, not with Francisco, but with Simone Boulevard, the Liberator, who as far as I'm aware is the guy who probably holds the world record for, like, the most independence days he directly generated. I think six countries, he helped. create basically or bring to independence in his wars against the Spanish colonial oppressors. Boulevard is often considered the Napoleon of Latin America. And again, Francisco is the guy who, like, wanted to be considered the Napoleon of Latin America, kind of afterwards, but is just

much worse at everything than Bolivar was. So South America, while kind of this is happening in the early 1800s, you know, this is part of a process of South and Central America becoming like decoupled from their former colonial owners, right? South and Central America had been colonized starting in the 1400s and 1500s and split between Spain and Portugal during the early part of the age of exploration. And most of these overseas possessions

started gaining their independence in the early 1800s. Chile declared its own independence in the 1810s and little old Paraguay does not that long afterwards. Paraguay had been a Spanish colony previously and from 1776 on, it had been governed by the viceroyality in Buenos Aires, right? So Paraguay is adjacent to modern day Argentina, but they're all being, in Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina today, but Paraguay is being governed from Buenos Aires by the viceroy during like the Spanish period, right?

And this establishes a precedent in the eyes of Argentinians, at least, that Paraguay is basically a client state, right? Once Argentina becomes its own thing, there's going to be for a very long time an attitude of like, well, they shouldn't be their own country, right? They used to be a run from our capital. Why are they a different country than us? Have you brought me on here as a British person to talk about places that Argentina thinks it should be governing? Yes. The British are experts on places Argentina should be governing. Yeah.

I made a comment about like wars that are fought in like the latter part of the 20th century by like ailing powers that wanted to get their mojo back. And I mentioned like the Falcons and Grenada and Panama. And people did point out that like, well, Argentina was like just really out of pocket. And they were. I'm not saying they weren't. I'm just saying that there was definitely an attitude of, oh, okay, we've still got some, we've still got some peppin our step, the British Empire, you know? Yeah, those people were, there were a lot of people who were extremely excited. Yeah.

For a colonial war. And guys, yes, Argentina was not in the right, but come on. It wasn't that hard a thing. Like, yeah. Now there was Panama or fucking Grenada, don't get me wrong, or deserts. storm. Yeah, it's another one. Yeah.

So the region, Paraguay, sorry, we're getting back to Paraguay. Argentinians see it as basically a client state, once Argentina becomes a country. That's how they think things ought to work. And Paraguay, the region had always been a backwater, even in the days of the Spanish Empire. There are very few people in what becomes Paraguay. And there's basically no industry and almost no exports worth speaking of, except for there's some tobacco. They make a bit of money from tobacco.

But the big export is Yerba, right? Like, you know, Urba Mote. Like, yeah, yeah. That's what fucking Paraguay makes, right? That is like the cash crop down there. And the- tea, like it's a tea leaf, right? Yeah, yeah, basically, right?

And the people who are indigenous to the region consider Yerba, a tonic and a cure-all, and everyone else kind of considers it a pretty good alternative to coffee and tea. The Spanish make attempts to bring Paraguay into the modern age, right, at the end of their period of control, and these are met with mixed success. So there's some, in Spain, does kind of industrialized parts of the capital, right, Ascantian, a little bit in this period of time,

but it's not, we're not talking like very serious efforts, and they are not comprehensive. So most people in Paraguay are mestizos, but Spanish immigrants dominated in the capital and in the city council, right? So this is primarily a country of people who are like mixed race between the indigenous people of the region and the Spanish colonizers. There's some Portuguese thrown in there, too. A lot of Brazilians wind up coming down, you know, into Paraguay. But the people who run things tend to be Spanish, right, like in this period of time. And immediately after independence, too, it's still fairly dominated because those are the folks who'd had money, right? Independence comes partly as a result, because again, they get their independence in like 1811.

And part of why is in 1807 Napoleon invades Iberia. And he winds up forcing the Bourbon dynasty off the throne and also forcing the rulers of Portugal to fleet of Brazil. And actually, the Portuguese empire is governed from Brazil for a while. Well, they're like, okay, we've got to deal with this Napoleon situation. Work the shit out. Yeah. And so in 1810, citizens in Buenos Aires declare an independent vice reality that includes Argentina and Paraguay.

And when Paraguayans hear this and hear that like, wait, wait, wait, we're not part of the empire anymore and you guys are saying you're in charge of us? Nah. And there's a little bit of a revolt. And later that year, the last Spanish governor meets with leaders in the capital to discuss the demands that Buenos Aires was making. And he's like, okay, we'll all. lead an army to like help fight for Paraguay and independence from these these breakaways,

right? And he wants Paraguay to stay loyal to Spain, obviously. Now, Paraguayan elites initially want to stay loyal to Spain. And so the early stirrings of what's going to become Argentina sends an army in to invade Paraguay. And they get their asses handed to them on two separate occasions in January and March of 1811. One thing that's interesting and true about Paraguay is that pretty consistently in the 1800s, they hit above their weight class as like a military they're not a military power because they're not a power there's a couple hundred thousand people in the entire region but they tend to fight very well right like they're better than you'd expect given like the discrepancies between sizes and industrial base now the army the

paraguane army was meant to be initially led by the spanish governor but as soon as he realizes an actual battle's going to happen he runs like fuck he's like i don't that's not what i signed up for so paraguane militia commanders might up taking control and after they win the battle they're like well we probably shouldn't be part of spain anymore like what are they doing for us so they overthroth and that's that's how paraguay becomes independent and all but name now he say all but name because at this point no other countries have recognized paraguay is an independent country yet that takes a little while argentina still thinks paraguay should be theirs but since they can't win a fair fight they decide to lock down the rio parania uh which is

a river that like it's the big if your paraguys landlocked so if you want to get stuff to brazil or to Argentina and thus to the coast and to the rest of the world, you have to travel down this big river, right? And because the river, like, Argentina controls the source of the river, I guess, and they also have a functional navy. So if they want to shut down the river, there's not much that Paraguay can do. You know, they can kind of keep the part of the river in their own country clear,

but they can't force their way out to the rest of the world, right? Argentina has that on too much lock. So now the city fathers of Assoncantian have a tough, decision to make, right? What kind of country should Paraguay be? Now, at this point, they don't have money and they barely have any people, but they're good enough at fighting that they choked the Rio with Argentine dead, right? So they do get to be a thing. The junta that's governing the region, and that's just the term they literally call this temporary governing body. Yeah, it's very common. Right, right. Tries to establish a republic. And because most Paraguans can't read or write and don't

live in the capital. Anyone with money and education at that time, which is a small group of people, has a shot at gaining power, right? There's not a lot of people kind of competing for the right to be in charge. Enter Dr. Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, who historian James Sager describes as the ablest man in Paraguay. The way Sager writes it, this is the guy who's going to become the first dictator of Paraguay, and he becomes the dictator because he's just kind like the smartest dude in the country and everybody sort of likes him at first. Like he just kind of knows what he's

doing and has read the most books. And they're all like, this guy seems fine. This guy seems like he knows what he's doing. Yeah. That is in the Spanish, but of Argentines. Let's go. Right. Now, the good doctor was a lawyer who'd been born in 1766 to a Brazilian father who had immigrated to

advise Paraguayan tobacco growers. His mother was Paraguayan. And the couple, and so again, he's a mestizo. And the couple sent their son to Cordoba in now Argentina to study, where he earned a doctorate in theology. Sager adds that, although he had five siblings, he felt no emotional ties to them, nor to his father, nor to any of his unknown number of illegitimate children. Okay, he's making a case for appearing on this podcast right there.

That's one of the indicators. Fascinating man. Yeah. And I have to really work to not say Dr. Francia, as if he's like the box wine. Sure, yeah. And it is my head canon that it's named after this brutal blood-soaked dictator. We can make that happen. As dictators go, he's like one of the better ones, but he's not great.

So, again, after graduation, this guy leaves the priesthood, and he goes home, it gets into philosophy, and he starts teaching at the seminary and training in law. Because in those days, Spanish law is pretty much based in the Bible, right? So it's not a huge pivot from, like, a theologian to, like, a lawyer in these days. Francia would later claim that his firm was dedicated to aiding the poor, but modern scholarship is proven that was a lie. He was a general practitioner who just kind of made that claim later. It's bullshiting. Yeah. As a mature adult, Dr. Francia became a prominent member of the elite in Ascension, and he was elected to several positions in the city council. He developed a virulent

hate for Spanish-born elites who occupied his home and dominated economic and cultural life. As we'll discuss more at length later, Spain was an honor-based society at this point. An honor, it's not supposed to be just a vague term for doing what you should, right? It's supposed to be like a resource, almost literally like wealth, that you build up over time and pass on to your family. And you can lose it if you fuck up for your family. As a man, you can kind of lose or gain honor. As a woman, you can only lose it here. That's the way it's usually put. That's cool. There have been to more modern studies that have kind of argued that like this whole honor culture thing was mainly a way for the elites to kind of message to the poor. And in reality,

like people broke these laws constantly. And obeying them was not. not in any way shape or form the norm. Right. Like it was largely like posturing, right? But that's debated. In the Spanish conception of honor, though, the poor and those of inferior race, like Indians and blacked enslaved people have no honor, or at least no honor that a Spaniard is bound to recognize.

Whereas people who are like wealthy and powerful members of the upper class have a duty to kind of, you have to display your honor and you have to see it recognized by others, right? Like otherwise they're kind of like talking shit to you if they're not going out of their way to like acknowledge your how much honor you deserve. Paraguay, this is the way that like leaders, particularly this is the way that like some of the leaders in Paraguay are going to come to view honor, right? And Paraguayans wind up like the natives, the mestizos, are considered during like the Spanish Empire one of the honorless classes, right?

And Dr. Francia hates that because again, he's, he is very angry at like the white supremacist strain that had run through the Spanish Empire. And that's something he's going to dedicate his time as dictator to destroy it. In 1810, he helped argue against accepting Argentina's claims on Paraguay, and after Paraguay's victory over Argentina, he became a Paraguay and nationalist. Over the course of the first couple of years, the country existed, he allies himself to the military, and he orchestrates his rise to total power during a short-lived republic that's barely worth the name, right?

So here's how an article on History is Now's website describes his reign. Called El Suprimo, he was considered a revolutionary fanatic by most international observers. He ruled Paraguay with an iron fist for over 25 years as part of a grand experiment in the implementation of revolutionary and enlightenment ideals. Francia had enforced isolation and attempted to create economic self-sufficiency. Absolute social equality was decreed between those of Spanish descent and the native Guarani people. The nation had repelled repeated attempts to come under the influence and economic dominance of or be taken over by Brazil, Argentina, and Great Britain. Foreigners were regularly arrested and expelled. And this is, first off, he's one of the first off.

he's one of the first people, really the first person I've ever heard of whose obsession with social equality is so that there are like restrictions on same race marriages during his reign, right? Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Reverse misce imagination. I've never heard of that actually. Like, I guess that's like bad, but it is unique.

So congratulations. Yeah, yeah. I have not run into that before. No, this just must never get out on X.com. Yeah. I'm sure they'll be how to get to the shit they say about the DSS. Yeah. So during Dr. Fransis, right, because again, this guy is like an arch isolationist.

It's basically impossible for Paraguayans to leave the country, which was still closed to the outside world by Argentina and in some ways Brazil. And this is kind of how he liked it, right? He does not want, he thinks the country needs to kind of keep to itself. And it gains a reputation of being like a hermit state. It's kind of talked about in this period the way North Korea is a lot in the modern era, right? Francia annihilated the old Spanish colonial elite, although this was mostly nonviolent. He said to have executed less than a hundred of them.

But in 1820, when a conspiracy tried to overthrow his regime, his secret police captured and executed 68 conspirators. This wiped out his political opposition. And according to Sager, Paraguay lacked a ruling class other than the doctor. Now, this doesn't mean there weren't rich people, there are. It just means that there aren't a lot of people who are both rich and powerful other than Dr. Francius, right? because he would murder anyone who threatened his power. So the successful and wealthy who are smart go into isolation, and they give up any pretense of political activity in order to stay comfortable, right?

Yeah. And one of these rich people who was like, ah, you know what, I don't need to be anywhere near politics, is a brilliant young farmer named Carlos Antonio Lopez, and he is the father of our subject for this week and going to be the second dictator of Paraguay. But at this point, he's a guy who's, like, really good at farming and builds a very successful business and is like,

I don't, I'm staying the fuck out of politics. I got no opinions at all, doctor. None. He doesn't want to die. Yeah. Good cool. Midway, and I said like Brazil also is kind of keeping part of Paraguay, you know, locked down effectively.

Brazil doesn't declare its independence until partway through Dr. Francia's reign in 1822. And independence is maybe too strong a word for like what initially happens, right? Because the first leader of Brazil is Prince Regent Pedro, who is a member of Portugal's ruling dynasty, the house of Braganza, and he becomes Emperor Pedro the first of Brazil. So it's like independence, you know? Yeah, yeah, like baby's first independence. Right. Yeah, a lot of Americans don't know that Brazil was an empire for a while, but they sure were. And they deserve to be called that. Brazil's like the same size as the U.S. pretty much, a continental U.S. pretty much.

It's huge. Like 80% of other empires in human history are smaller than the Brazilian one, probably. It's a big fucking, you know, thing. Although it's sparsely populated, I should say, in this period of time. From the beginning of Brazil and Argentina as independent nations, they are at each other's throats. They're like the France and England or France and Germany of South America for a while. Yeah. Sorry, James. Yeah, that makes sense.

That helps me understand. Thank you. Yeah. From 1825 to 1828, they fight a brutal war over the territory that's going to become Uruguay, which immediately collapses into a series of civil wars after its independence that are also proxy war, between Brasilia and Argentina. That's like they're, it's almost like they're Afghanistan or their Vietnam for a while. Like Brazil and Argentina cannot stop fucking around in Uruguay.

Dr. Franzi. Just feeding people into Uruguay to come out and meet China. Yeah. Many such cases. This is really bad for Uruguay's population. A lot of guys die in there. Dr. Francius keeps Paraguay the fuck out of all of this. And under him, the country gains, again, it's this very isolated place, but peaceful.

Now, as I said earlier, Carlos Lopez is one of the few people smart enough to keep their head down, stay alive, and get rich during the Francius regime. He had been born in the latter days of the Spanish Empire, and he'd grown up learning how to survive in an empire run by people who considered themselves superior to him. This cunning stood him in fine stead when it came time to jockey for power. Francia died in 1840, and Lopez, because he's one of the richest guys left alive, becomes a prominent man kind of overnight, and as soon as it's safe, he starts getting involved in politics. Now, again, you have this junta of military officers who form a council to vote on, like, what to do next. Lopez returns to a sonzion as soon as the dictator's dead, and in February of 1821, there's a kind of coup, and an officer named Mariano Alonso is made dictator. Now, Alonzo does not know how to run a country. I don't think he really wants to run a country.

But his men had put him in charge, and so he decides to hire the smartest guy still living to do the actual governing. And that's how Carlos Lopez gets his foot in the door. Alonzo and Lopez are appointed consuls for three years. And because Alonzo doesn't really have any talent for governing, Lopez sort of falls naturally into the rule of leader. And he eventually edges Lopez out and makes himself from consul into the president. Now notably, and this really says a lot about the kind of dictator Carlos Lopez is, he never has Alonzo killed or purged, right?

He just kind of takes over and everyone's fine with it more or less. I mean, everyone's not fine with it. He has a lot of secret police. But he's not one of these guys who feels the need to, like, murder everybody who might have been a center of power necessarily, right? He's not insecure as a dictator, which is interesting. Like, he seems like a healthy ego and not in, like, the toxic way necessarily. Yeah, he's convinced he earned it, I guess.

Like, he doesn't feel threatened by the others. The way, the way Sager puts it is he understands that he's the most powerful man in Paraguay, and he understands that he has absolutely no power and influence outside of Paraguay, and that's not a problem for him. He does not have an issue with that, right? And so if you're going to have a dictator, you could do worse than this kind of guy. Carlos Lopez is sort of heavy set by the time he becomes the leader. You know, he's overweight and he's not in great shape.

And between that and the fact that foreign travel is very hard to do for Paraguans, he just never leaves the capital and he has zero interest in war or military. He's kind of too lazy to be like to go. to war with anybody, which is really good. Again, that's what you want. He just keeps it ticking alone. Yeah, it could be worse. Yeah, and he does reform the military for defensive purposes,

but he mostly works on fixing the damage Franci as has done. As is always the case with Paraguayan leaders in this period, there are immediately rumors that Carlos Lopez is like part African or descended from like a slave or the wrong kind of Garani, right? Because there's the good kind of indigenous people, basically, as Paraguayans in the capital see it. And then there's the bad kind who live out near the choccas. which is like they're kind of deserted, very difficult to grow things region.

And they're like, oh, I think he's descended from one of those. Right. Like there's rumors with that with his son too. It's a constant thing in this period of time. And he doesn't, as far as I know, he doesn't seem to like go murder crazy over rumors like this. Now, there's not really much of a press. So he doesn't have, there's no, it's kind of spreading word of mouth. There's no one to murder.

Yeah. He does inherit Dr. Francius' well-developed secret police force. And Francius had formed his, had been. had based a secret police force on the Inquisition. And so when we're talking about these dictators of Paraguay having secret police, they're all descendants of the Spanish Inquisition, right? That's great. So we picked up a lot when he was in theological college.

Yeah, he really did. Nuts and bolts. A couple lessons. And he does use, again, he has secret police. He's not never brutal, but he does kind of have a, he seems mildly allergic to brutality. And he's a fairly intelligent character. leader, I would say his main flaw, pretty much everyone agrees, is that he fucking loves nepotism. He is so dedicated to nepotism.

That is this motherfucker's favorite thing, is giving his kids and relatives power. He loves doing that. You know who else loves nepotism, James? Oh, I couldn't imagine. It's the products and services that support this podcast. That's right. Of course they do. That's why they support creating a new feudal monarchy that's based entirely.

on blood inheritance, you know? Run by your cousins. That always works in the past. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pesto survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty,

half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit.

for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. If your bookshelf and your 4-U page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is prose society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside

compelling characters, then that is the Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro society on the I-heart, radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who lived through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our town is small taters by most standards, right? But to the people who grew up here, it's everything. What happens when a quiet Tennessee town becomes the front line in a battle over the future of America? Developers with right-wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land in the area. The first thing you see when it pops up is pioneers and asses. But they weren't just planning houses. We need cities on a shining hill that exemplify and embody the Christian way of life.

Stop right there. Is that normal? A podcast about what happens when a small town becomes the site of a social experiment. God need men to rule. Great. And decides to fight back. Do not use my hard work to sell your bull-h. They're not just opposing what's being planned for here. Our hometown is not a test. to they feel like they're standing in opposition to an entire administration.

Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to our town on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. God, I love a government where it just matters who your dad was and then you're in charge forever. That thing never goes bad. It never leads to like most of the country dying. It's a great principle for human organizing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Who is your dad? You're in charge now.

Yeah, perfect. That seems like the best way to choose. I don't think we've ever done a better way. So the dictator Carlos Lopez's son, Francisco Solano-Lopez-Carrillo, was born on July 24, 1826, in the capital. He grows up under the dictatorship until his adolescent, under Dr. Francia's dictatorship, until he's like an adolescent. And then his dad winds up in charge. But he's, during like, the days of Dr. Francia's dictatorship, he's completely isolated,

not just from any danger, but from, like, society. He lives in opulence on his father's farm with slaves, literal slaves, waiting on him hand and foot. That's his entire early life. And he just never leaves this big farm where his dad is basically God. Now, Carlos, you know, part of his child-rearing tactic is that he wants his kids to compete for his affection. But what's interesting is there doesn't ever seem to be competition to have been like the kid who's going to follow in his footsteps. He only ever races Francisco to be the new dictator, right? And so Francisco grows up attended to by a series of tutors, and until age 14, he never leaves his father's lands.

Per his biography, Francisco Salano Lopez and the ruination of Paraguay, Sega writes, he expected that all persons except his father treat him with deference, preferably with servility. Employees were reverent to all the Lopez boys. The young men led scandalous and dissolute lives without adverse consequences, except for Venanzio, who acquired a wasting disease. Confronted with no higher authority than his indulgent father, Francisco was never in a position to learn the interpersonal skills that most other boys needed just to survive. And so this is where we get to one of the downsides of a hereditary monarchy.

Yeah. That is a setup for being not a great person. It's surrounded by people who are deferent to you and never going out. Yeah, except for your dick dad. Everyone else can never argue with you. You can't have a single honest relationship, right? Yeah. And his dad has the ab.

He grows up surviving in like first the Spanish and empire and then a dictatorship and learning how to and learning that like you have to be able to work with other people and rely on them and you have to be like careful and you're not all powerful and you need to have caution and his son is never going to learn any of these things his son grows up being turned like you're going to inherit the country and you literally can't do anything wrong right this is a really bad way to raise a kid this is not great this is uh full on like uh european monarchy shit yeah and so despite being groomed for power by his father and i was actually as a result of being groomed for power by his father,

Francisco never learns how to read people or how to convince others of his opinions. He never has to. He just gives orders and people obey, and that's a bad way to teach leadership. The only trait Francisco inherits from his father is an excellent work ethic. He is not lazy.

Neither of these dictators are lazy men. They both work very hard. But as Sager writes, he never learns empathy. Quote, whether he was born without empathy or just never needed to develop it is unknowable. The fact remains, though, that of all the things in life that he lacked, and those were few in the material sense, the inability to empathize

eventually contributed most to his destiny. You should hear like a da-da-d-d-d-d-d-there because he's going to get a lot of people killed. Yeah, also, that is like, you know, when you're writing a relatively academic tone history, that is that is a burn. Yeah. It's about as unkind as you can be to someone, I think. That's about as mean as an academic is allowed to go. Yeah, yeah.

So, Francisco is surrounded by slaves and employees from the day of his birth, and he never has a friend his entire life. He also grows up certain of his own brilliance and destiny, and this is for sure his dad's fault. Carlos sends his son off to Buenos Aires to study the capital of their greatest geopolitical foe, and when he returns home, Francisco is appointed to several cabinet positions in succession. His father calls this hands-on training for the future, and Francisco takes the work seriously if he doesn't show any particular aptitude for it. Carlos does some similar stuff with his other kids. He hands each of his kids and his closer relatives, profitable farms and real estate packages, as well as large numbers of Afro-Paraguay and enslaved people to see, like,

what he can make with them. And it becomes by kind of the midpoint in Carlos's regime, there's no major industry or business in Paraguay that one of his direct relatives is not in charge of, you know, and directly taking a cut from, which is the primary reason why they're put in there is to take a cut. So the Lopez family is, is like, skimming like 25% off the top of the whole economy pretty much, right? That's the way this works. Every dollar you spend, half of it goes to them straight away in various things. Right. Americans are increasingly familiar with this kind of government, aren't we?

Yeah, it's going to say, we could let a lot from this, couldn't we? Yeah, some people in the country could. While Francisco learns the ropes, his father expands the surveillance system that Dr. Francius had built, allowing him to monitor all foreign entry to the country and watch such visitors as a hawk now that foreigners were allowed to enter the country. Despite some nativist preclusions, yeah, Carlos opens Paraguay to the rest of the world during his second decade in power, right? He starts letting foreigners in. He starts inviting foreign investment and industry. Part of what inspires this is there's a change of regime in Argentina. And so the leadership in Argentina is no longer saying, eternal war against Paraguay, right?

Which makes it a lot easier to open things up. Carlos Lopez knows that Paraguay is not a powerful country and that outside its borders, he is not an important man. his son will utterly lack any sense of this humility. But Francisco benefits from his father's foresightedness. See, one thing Carlos becomes big on is sending those promising young men in Paraguay overseas on scholarship so they can learn how other countries do things and bring that knowledge back. It's a pretty good idea if you're in the kind of situation Paraguay's in this point in time. So, by the 1850s, Paraguay is trading with the rest of the world,

and Carlos and his son Francisco are basically co-rulers. the Lopez family gets to have a hand in every major business in the country and Francisco and his brother buy and sell land and enslaved people from the state without paying because other people like for one thing one of the laws basically is that for certain kinds of transactions

only a member of the Lopez family can be there to approve it and so if you're like selling to Francisco or his brother Benigno a bunch of slaves that the government owns like there's no one to take the money from them right even if they agree to like a payment And also when there's like auctions for goods, if one of them shows up, if a Lopez family member shows up, everyone else knows that you can't bid anymore.

Right. What a fucking life. Great situation to be in if you're a Lopez. We got one dollar. Everyone's just like, yep. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah, sounds like a fair price, boss.

Yeah. Please don't have the inquisition. Yeah. So the looting of the economy was married to a vigorous expansion of the military. military and police, which Francisco personally oversaw. His father appointed him a brigadier general of the army when he turned 18, and in a couple of years, he's running the army, basically. I'm sure they appreciate that.

Yeah, I'm sure the army love that. Yeah. Francisco does read obsessively about modern European military strategy, theory, and weaponry, and he becomes deeply interested in Napoleon and equally interested in making Paraguay a great nation, one the European powers would have to look at with respect. And the only way he sees to do that is like, well, you have to have a big fancy army that's like a European-style army. Otherwise, you can't be respected as a nation. You won't have any kind of like honor that other people are forced to, you know, acknowledge.

And his dad is not interested in any of this shit, but his dad also can't say no to his son. And so in 1853, when diplomats from the United States and several other nations come to the capital to recognize Paraguayan independence, he gives his son, 27-year-old Francisco Lopez, the job of handling the negotiations. Carlos still has to sign everything, but it was agreed that, like, you know, his kid would be the face of this whole thing. And after this, foreigners are now able to enter and leave the former hermit kingdom at will, so long as they bring money with them. There were so many treaties to be signed in this period of time that Francisco has an excuse to be asked to be sent overseas, where he would conclude both diplomatic work and purchase a bunch of modern weaponry from Europe. So he's basically like, hey, this thing with the Americans worked so well.

we have all these other countries now that we're opening up that we need to make friendship trees with and trade agreements with. Why don't you let me go to Europe? I can pick up. I can also hang out around some armies, maybe watch some armies, do army stuff, buy some guns. So this is going to be like the big thrill of Francisco Lopez's life is getting to like go overseas in his late 20s and hang out in Europe. He's not bumming around it because he's basically the Prince of Paraguay.

But, you know, right. Here's a, yeah. He's taking his gap here. He's taking his gap a couple of years in Europe to also like. Also, like, buy a bunch of guns. Yeah. God, who wouldn't want to do that? Yeah, what a dream.

What a dream. To quote from another, I'm going to read from another quote from that article on History Is Now.com. He traveled to several nations in Europe as minister, the most important of which for him was France. While there, he became fascinated with the French Second Empire and everything Napoleonic. He would purchase French military equipment, especially uniforms that were copied from the Napoleonic style.

So he's really doing, like, Napoleon cosplay. And because this is the period of Napoleon. The French are also doing Napoleon cosplay now. Yeah, right, yeah. Yeah, everyone's kind of doing like a cargo cult version of Napoleonism. That's great. He's the cosplay of a cosplay. And I love that, like, he's like, I've studied military technology, I've traveled abroad, I've worked it all out.

What we need is different uniforms. Like, it's the outfits. Better hats. Big chakos. Everyone's got one of these Napoleon hats. It's also really funny. If you go back to episodes on Napoleon the Third, he was not great. great.

You know, he had some success for a while, but it's, it's really funny. Almost a lot of other people, like, realized, oh, this, this is a fucking idiot at the time. But all of his schick, Napoleon III's bullshit works perfectly on Francisco Lopez. He is, he falls for this dude. He could not be more in love. And it's even a funnier, Napoleon III does not care for him at all. Not interested in this little two-bit fucking dictator's kid. Yeah, that's even better.

Yeah. He's just like a Napoleon super fan at this point, just following him. him around asking for his autograph. We just did our episodes on like Alex Karp and talked about his, his like, wannabe mentor, Juergen Habermas was just not that interested in working with Alex Karp when he was a young man.

And Lopez, Francisco Lopez has kind of the same relationship with Napoleon the third where he comes back with like a treaty and he's like, look, this proves that we're best friends. Like read this letter that Napoleon sent along with a treaty. And it's like a form letter where he's like, was great to have you at the Capitol.

Yeah. It's like, this is like Taylor Swift right back to her fans. It's really sad. Yeah, it's got like a little fill in the blank way put his name in there. Yeah, the name of potentate here. He's also got his letters from Santa right next to it. Yeah, he's got an identical letter from Santa. Napoleon used the same shop as the Santa people.

They both came from the North Pole, weirdly. So Lopez also hires a bunch of tactics. technical experts while he's over in Europe to help with everything. And these guys are going to move to Paraguay because that's kind of how that shit works at the time. And in part, he wants to build railways, which is a good idea. And he does, like, build railways across Paraguay. Great idea. Trains, really work.

And it's good to bring in Europeans to help you with your trains in this period of time. He also has guys bring in and build a telegraph network. Again, a good idea. And he brings in British, I think it's mostly British soldiers to train his artillery and Austrians to train his infantry, which is also pretty much who you want doing those jobs. in this period of time. It's about as good as you could get. He orders a steam warship,

this like big, kind of modern at the time. By the time it gets to Paraguay, it's going to be horribly outdated because it's not like an ironclad, but he orders like a modern steam warship, and he grows obsessed with the idea of like, Paraguay is a modern industrial country

with its own rail system and a modern navy and a big army with modern steel cannons and some brass cannons because he doesn't have that much money. And, yeah, This is, you know, kind of his dream, right, is this sort of modern, militarized Paraguayan state, right? And from an early stage, Lopez is planning out not just how to, like, update the military for defense.

He wants to reform the military into a force that can offensively prove Paraguayan greatness and thus his own greatness, right? I don't think he has, like, plans for the war he's going to start yet, but he clearly wants the option to start a war. Right. He's just waiting for the war to present itself. Yeah, yeah, okay. That's always a good way to be, I feel like. That's a good way to go about your life. Yeah, oh, great idea.

So if you wanted a great army in the mid-1800s, again, you're going to need to go, like, get some Prussians, get some Brits, maybe get some Frenchmen. And Francisco tries to, like, when he's talking to the Prussians to, like, get some of theirs dudes, he tries to win favor with Prussia by creating a trade imbalance so that, like, Prussia feels like they kind of owe him. And to do this, he brings 5,000 pounds of Yerba to Prussia to try to get German soldiers addicted to this stuff?

It's like their caffeine. So they're hooked. They'll need to keep coming back to Paraguay. Those British soldiers really showed him the ropes, didn't they? It's really funny. You should have just tried to fucking import some cocaine, man. That would have gone off like a bang in pressure. Go hard if you're going to go for it.

It's not that far away. Your first Yerba's on him. I don't think the Yerba's going to really do it. I mean, nothing against Yerba, but it's just not that. It's not that addictive. I got some friends who are really. You hit the yurba, the canned Yerba pretty hard. I like the canned Yerba every once in a while.

It's fine. Yeah, it's not bad. It's not bad. I like it when you get it in the traditional fashion from the gourd. His brilliant scheme is to like get the Prussian army addicted to Yerba. It's really funny. Yeah. Yeah.

Of all the things that you can grow in that, in South America, right? He's gone with tea. He's gone with tea. It's also really funny. He tries to. to bribe like a British industrial leader by giving him a tiger cup which is really cool.

I mean, it's probably pretty bad for the tiger, but it's funny. Yeah, also the tiger's just going to grow up and fuck up that guy's house. Yeah, I mean. It's kind of a ticking time bomb situation. Is that so bad? Congratulations, I've given you a problem for the future.

It would be very funny if that was his goal. Like, look at this cute cat. Yeah. Now, his prized moment in his career was meeting former subject of the show. Emperor Napoleon III, as I said, who he saw as a brilliant man and military leader for reasons that cannot be explained. The two have a very formal meeting, but again, he's going to claim their best friends. In general, Francisco Lopez leaves a really bad impression wherever he goes.

If he hadn't been the dictator's son, he'd have been laughed out of every fine home on the continent for his rudeness and poor personal hygiene. As his biographer notes in ruination of Paraguay, quote, non-Paraguayans note in his atrocious breath, the residue of his habitual cigar smoking increased his halitosis. He learned to dress like a military dandy, the generous funds from his father, and Francisco's willingness to spend the money on himself made him attractive to certain women. So he's kind of slutt in his way. This guy's really a master of like the passive aggression, isn't he? Like in his little burns every sentence we get. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And you know who else uses money to appear attractive to certain women? Oh. The sponsors of our podcast. I was going to go different direction. I thought you're going to say the guys that include their credit score on their dating app profiles. Is that a thing people do? Honey, yes.

I don't even know my credit score. Are you fucking cheating me? No. That's fucked up. That's really weird and off-break. It's wild out there, guys. That's incredibly gross. If you're doing that, if you're doing that, you're listening to the show.

Homies, you got to stop. You got to stop that. Because my credit store is just fine. I don't need your hope. Honestly, go back to a fish. You know what? Go back to the fish. of you with a fish.

Yeah, I think it would be great. At least a lot of times there's the fish credit score combo. And that's like an instant. Really? It really helps. It really helps weed out the weirdos. That would be an emotional roller coaster. Because the fish person seems happy, secure.

Hopefully they're putting the fish back. What we're hearing is that the fish pictures would work on you. Yeah, if you're coming after me, you show me a fish. She's doing all kinds of things. Back and forth. Not like a lung fish or something hideous, you know, but like a nice looking fish, I'd be all about it.

I don't fucking care about your credit scores, don't know what good credit score is. But I know what a good fish is. I know what a good fish is. Yeah, when I see a good fish, I know what you're talking about. I said, Sophie, a good video of a shot. Just like our sponsors.

I don't need your fish picks or your fish videos. I have James Stout. All right. We're going to ads. This is done. I'm like a fucking sea lion. You know, that's the only thing I want in life is,

fish. I didn't care about your credit school. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pastos survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before

you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell Connection is everything.

When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club,

part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. Someone says. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters,

then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro society on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

See you between the pages. Our town is small taters by most standards, right? But to the people who grew up here, it's everything. What happens when a quiet Tennessee town becomes the front line in a battle over the future of America? Developers with right-wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land in the area. The first thing you see when it pops up is pioneers in Appalachia. But they weren't just planning houses. We need cities on a shining hill that exemplify.

and embody the Christian way of life. Stop right there. Is that normal? A podcast about what happens when a small town becomes the site of a social experiment. God need men to rule. Great. And decides to fight back. Do not use my hard work to sell your bull-h.

They're not just opposing what's being planned for here. Our hometown is not a test tube. They feel like they're standing in opposition to an entire administration. Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to Our Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So one of the women that he meets during his time in Europe is a beautiful Irish lady, probably Irish lady. We don't know a lot about her because she's a con woman named Eliza Lynch.

Eliza told him that she was 18 when they met. This is definitely a lie. Her son would later say she was more likely 22. Other evidence says she was probably like 28 or 29. Okay, I'm glad it went that direction. I'm glad it's older than she said, yes, of course. Yes. Yeah, I was worried.

I'm not going to lie. The main point of this is that we don't really know where she came from or what she did. Like, this is a lady who has like a shady-ass background. She was at one point married to a French surgeon and the army. And the two, when she meets Francisco Lopez, she divorces this guy. Although it's possibly she divorced him right before. It's kind of unclear to me. But at least one version of the story is as soon as she realized she has a chance to, like, get with a world leader.

She just dumps her husband. She's like, fuck this. She saw his credit score and she was all over it. Yeah, exactly. The rare credit score appreciated her. Dictators have a great credit score because they own the credit bureaus. Come on. Or we had a fish.

Or we didn't know about that hasn't been recorded by historians. So Eliza said that she was born in County Cork. We know the year she says was a lie. Maybe she was born in County Cork. She would initially claim that her family were like very tied to British occupation forces and had made a bunch of money through that. One of her uncle, she said, was an admiral who fought under Nelson at Trafalgar, but no one can really figure out who this guy could have been.

Right? So she's probably a lie. Tons of admirals. Like, not a lot of guys who fought under Nelson at Trafalgar and were admirals. My take is that she was kind of a con woman, although an understandable one, fleeing probably a series of bad marriages and seeking her fortune and power the only way a woman could in like the 1850s in Europe. Right?

I think she's kind of an understandable figure. Yeah, I think that's heroic, to be honest. She's grifting off bad people. She's grifting a guy who needs to be grifted, right? Yeah. It would be a sin if this man hadn't been grifted to some extent. Yeah, right. That is an open goal for someone.

Exactly. You got to try. By the time she met Lopez, she was said to have been working in Paris as a prostitute or cortisone, which I think is much more likely than some of the story she told. The two get together in 1854. Sager describes her as, quote, beautiful blonde, blue-eyed young woman with a gorgeous complexion, as well as a skilled linguist who spoke perfect French and English and soon learned Spanish and Guarani with equal faculty.

So when she moves to Paraguay, she learns both the indigenous language and Spanish to like fluent. So this is a smart lady, right? She's also very cool. It's just like a prestige language situation where like Spanish is the language of government. Not not by the, I mean, somewhat I think it's kind of hard because there are also times where it's like, no, like for because for patriotic reasons, you need to speak some Ronnie, right?

Yeah. I don't have a great sense of all that. I'm not going to try to delve too deep into Paraguay and racial politics. That's way outside of my level of education here. She knows European manners. She knows good wine, though. And because he has terrible manners, she's able to really help him out at a lot of these, like, functions he's going to.

And she gets him addicted to wine. He becomes quite a heavy drinker as a result of their relationship. And she helps him, you know, I want to show you. Sophie's going to show you a picture of her from 1864. So you're seeing this lady. She's very like classically attractive woman. Right? She's got like bangles on her arms.

Her hair's done up in a crazy form. And now... Is there any fish? I'm not seeing any fish. But next, Sophie's going to show you a picture of Francisco Lopez. And the kindest thing I can say about him is his neck beard is very full. Yeah. It's a full full neck beard.

A full face. It's a full neck beard to be specific. Because that beard is right on the neck and nowhere out. Side part situation. Side parts rough, yeah, he's gone below the bum chin. Like, has a bum chin have her. It's a fascinating looking hairdo, man. Yeah, what, it's a hell of a choice.

It's a lot of choices at once. Yeah. And then the triangle stash. And she looks cool as shit. And she looks cool as shit. Yeah. What's she got in her head? She looks like, uh, jazz. Oh, could be flowers.

He looks like, um, what's his name? Galifernakis is his character from the hangover. Is that Galifernack's from the hangover? He looks like him in the head of him. That character is playing Napoleon. If you're listening, that'll get you there. That'll get you right there. And by the way, he has a bunch of big medals.

He invented all those medals for himself. And she kind of looks like Stevie Nix Ferry. She looks a little like Stevie Nix. Yeah. And he looks like if Lindsay Buckingham did Napoleon cosplay and was worse looking. Yeah. It looks like she's doing the rock on sign. It does.

It does a little bit. Yeah, she's pretty cool. She's certified daddy. Yeah. She's got one of those 90s choker necklaces. Yeah, a pretty cool chokers. And you said she's a con woman. Does she con this man?

She conns kind of the country of Paraguay. You know what? And she's Irish. I'm not going to claim it's harmless conning. Okay, yeah. She probably was Irish. I don't think we really know for sure. Let's go.

So the two are never married. They do conceive a child, at least one child together. And based on the math, this probably occurs during the latter stage. of his 18-month tour of Europe. During their time traveling together, he also starts drinking heavily. After France, they visit Italy, where he's supposed to visit the Pope,

but the Pope's like, oh, you know, oh, man, so much going on. Why don't you hang out with this other guy? He gets snubbed. He gets snubbed a lot. And then he goes to Spain where he gets snubbed again because his former colonial masters

refused to sign a treaty of recognition unless Paraguay allows children of Spanish citizens in the country to choose, which citizenship they want. Per his biographer, quote, Lopez opposed granting anyone such a right

since he was not a supporter of legal rights anyway. I love the guy. This is a great biography. It's a really fun guy. It's a really good biography. Seger's a great writer. Yeah, logically consistent there. It's not that I don't just want to give you guys rights.

I just don't believe in him, full stop. Sager has my favorite kind of biography where it's incredibly, he read every word this man ever wrote to anyone that we still have access to, basically, and he hates him. He hates so much. The hate fuel biography is fascinating to me. That's one of my favorite kinds of writing. Yeah, it's the most powerful kind of hatred to dominate the historical scholarship of someone's life, because you hate them so fucking much.

As a hater, I got to take my hat off if I was wearing one to Sager, because you get our Hater of the Week Award if we were to have such an award. During his time in Europe, Lopez's time in Europe, the Crimean War, you know, is happening. And Lopez takes the opportunity to observe parts of this modern conflict. He sees some early modern trench warfare. And he considers this a crucial part of his military education. Per the website history is now, the experience would prove invaluable to him. And it gave him knowledge on the handling of large armies, especially siegecraft. The Crimean War was defined by the siege of Sevastopol, which saw the alleys of Britain, France, the Ottomans, and Sardinia, besiege a

Russian army that held out far longer than anyone thought possible. And so at least that's something a lot of people will say is that, like, this gives him this understanding. He's going to rely heavily on fortifications during the war that he starts that ends badly. And people kind of suspect part of why is that he learns how powerful they can be. I think that people also tend to give him too much credit for how much he learns from his very limited experience with the Crimean War because I don't think he ever is very good at war. I think he gets lucky a couple of times in this.

I'm getting ahead of myself. That said, he does, this is, the Crimean War influences his thinking on how war should be carried out, certainly, and that is really important. Again, Eliza and he never marry, but he does knock her up and decides to take her back to Paraguay with him when he leaves. Now, his brother Benigno, who's with him on his tour of Europe, fights him over this and warns him back home that like, no one will accept her. She's been married before. And this is probably the start, because there's going to be, he's got to have his brother sit to a camp, right? Some people will say this is where, like, their disagreements started. But as a partial sob to his brother in public feeling,

Lopez makes his mistress travel to Paraguay on a separate ship. Francisco returns home, yeah, it's poor Eliza. I think she has pretty nice both, though. And maybe she wanted a break from the dude. To me, yeah, maybe that's a made more of a win for her than I'm imagining. Wouldn't be shocked if she wanted a break from the dude. Yeah. She's like, oh, no.

Oh, no, I'm so hurt. Whoa is me. Yeah. I'm going to just put, like, 30 hot dudes. on this boat with me that aren't you. Thank you. Okay, I'll see you soon. Bye. The boat gets lost. Circum navigates the globe. Yeah. Francisco returns home triumphant with an armful of treaties and hundreds of foreign workers and advisors who start flooding into Paraguay, laying down train tracks, and reforming the military. An article I found on the

Warfare History Network by Robert Hage notes that Francisco also returned with, quote, several steamships to fell out the embryonic Paraguayan fleet, along with all the guns, ammunition, and gold braid that his deep pockets could purchase. Now, yeah, again, tactical, tactical genius. Tactical braid. The braiding is critical, critical. Can't fight a war without a gold braid. Nope, as much bling as possible.

That's what he learned for the French. We all remember after the expanded Russian invasion into Ukraine, when Zelensky was asked, hey, do you need evac by like NATO and said, I don't need a ride, I need more gold braid. As much gold braid as you can get in here. I dropped me uniforms. Build this country with braid. I've invented several new medals and I need to stop them. Yeah, famously, Robert, when you and I were in Myanmar, they were 3D printing little gold braids for their uniforms.

Yeah. And that's worked out well for it. As Napoleon said, an army marches on gold braid. They do call it scrambled egg, I guess. Maybe that's, yeah. What's that famous line? Amateurs discuss strategy. Professionals discuss gold braid.

So all of this gear is part of a plan Francisco has made to expand and modernize the Paraguayan Army. And he is, this is, whenever I read this, I can. can't think he's just playing Warhammer 40,000 with real-life dudes, right? And the arms merchants of Europe are his games workshop and he's buying all these cool new models, right? Like, oh, this is neat. This gun's cool. I want one of these. We got to take these. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, he's, uh, yeah, many such cases actually in history. This is what happened when you have hereditary power an awful lot. Oh, it had, because this is the Kaiser Wilhelm story, but well, Kaiser Wilhelm has a lot bigger budget and way smarter guys building his military.

Also a lot more humans to pour into the meat. He's got Germany, right? Francisco does not just want an army that looks like Napoleon's, though. He wants conquest. Some sources will claim that from the moment they met, Eliza helped encourage her lover's delusions of grandeur. Prohijesia's article, Eliza Lynch, like many a gold digger before her,

catered to her meal tickets outsized ego, recklessly encouraging his delusions of grandeur in dreams of imperial glory. I think this is probably a little too harsh on Eliza, I think it may just be that, like, she understood that with a kind of guy like this, you only ever tell him his ideas are good, because otherwise he's done with you.

And that's just, like, how she survives. You know? That's how she's trying to start this war. Right, like, maybe. Yeah, that he just isn't really holding it back, because he's not quite so subtle with his criticism. Right. I'm not kind of really willing to blame her about this guy's ego.

A little, uh, little uninvestigated misogyny on Heath's part there. Maybe, maybe. And it's not, he's not inventing that. People at the time accused her of them. But people at the time accused her of this probably not for totally great reasons. So as soon as he's back in a soncion, Francisco takes on new powers. His father is old and ailing and happy to delegate to a son who seems to have proved himself fit for the job. For his part, Lopez tells everyone who will listen back home about his experiences befriending Napoleon.

He was also known to say, bravery and nothing more than bravery made Bonaparte great, which so is a massive understanding of the man, that, like, Napoleon was great purely for his physical courage. And it's like, no. I mean, like, Napoleon, among other things, Napoleon's approach to warfare was only really possible because he came to govern a massive nation that had pioneered conscripting its entire people, right? And Lopez is going to try to follow in his footsteps while governing a country that at its most, when he was in charge, its top population would have been like around 450,000 people. Okay, yeah, well, he's really, he's behind. Like, Napoleon burns that many dudes just in France. Why? So the results of trying to apply

Napoleonic tactics to a country that is smaller than Portland, Oregon are going to be catastrophic. This does not go well for fucking anybody. Yeah, geez, yeah, that is, yeah, he doesn't realize he's not playing with the same deck here. He sure is not. And we'll talk about what happens next in part two. But first, James, you want to go out,

given your plug-uables? Yeah, absolutely. So I have a new podcast that you can listen to you from the 17th of August on the IHalt Media app or where else you get your podcast. It's called Natural Causes. It's about going outside. We're going to talk about the politics of going outside. It comes out once a week. And yeah, I'd love to see you over there.

Has a great theme song. And has a great theme song. Very beautiful art. In my living room. Yes. And another friend of mine made the art. We're doing this very DIY, which is, I've never looked at a thing and thought, could I not take longer and spend more money doing that myself?

So it's very beautiful for me to have all my friends doing this. Excellent. Well, please listen to natural causes. And please keep listening to Behind the Bastards. Because in the next episode, we're going to tell you how Francisco Lopez does when he finally gets to take his cool new army out on the tabletop. Okay.

Start playing real-life Warhammer with tens of thousands of humans, hundreds of thousands. Eventually, it's going to be great. It would go about as well. it would have I got to do that, honestly. Hundreds of thousands. That's an impressive percentage he's working with. James, wait until you hear how many people he gets fucking killed.

It is crazy. Very excited for this. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Full video episodes of Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit Remind me on Netflix so you don't miss an episode. For clips in our older episode catalog continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com slash at Behind the Bastards.

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