The Rest Is History - 389. The Fall of the Aztecs: The Night of Tears (Part 6)

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Things have never looked bleaker for Hernán Cortés and his band of Spaniards. They are trapped, starving and terrified in the heart of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, surrounded by an enraged people bent on revenge. And with their imperial hostage Montezuma dead, they only have one option left - a desperate escape in the dead of night.  Can they make it across the lake with their gold? Or will the Aztecs intercept them before it’s too late? In today’s episode of this epic series, Tom and Dominic tell the story of one of the most dramatic moments in all history - the night of 30th June 1520, La Noche Triste, when the Spanish tried to break out of Tenochtitlan. They also explore the aftermath of this hellish episode, and the arrival of another, even greater threat to the survival of the Aztecs - disease … *Dominic’s book The Fall of the Aztecs is available now from bookshops across the UK - the perfect Christmas present!* *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in New Zealand and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. up for the adventure. This iconic, award-winning vehicle has been redefined with a distinctive, modern design. A reimagined exterior features compelling proportions and precise detailing.

Built with integrity and purpose, the interior boasts robust, durable materials. Whether it's the all-terrain capability, ample cargo capacity, or innovative camera technology, the Defender 110 lets you go further and do more. And with seating for up to seven, everyone can enjoy the journey. Learn more at Land land rover.ca it was midnight when cortez gave the order to evacuate the palace it was a warm night with a fine rain in the air. A shroud of silence hung over the city. As the Spaniards moved into the alley, nobody spoke a word. Cortes had divided his company into three groups. First came the vanguard, 200 strong, led by Gonzalo de Sandoval and Diego de Odaz. This group also included Malinche and Luisa, as well as Magarino and his engineers,

carrying their wooden bridge. Then came Cortes himself, with most of the infantry, the surviving Tlaxcalans and the gold. Finally came Alvarado and the rearguard, including most of the horsemen. Before leaving, they had muffled the horses' hooves with cloths to avoid making a sound. Quietly, they moved through the streets, heading towards the western causeway. The burned building stood silent and empty, like ghostly reminders of a vanished age. There were no signs of life. So, dramatic scenes as Cortes and the Spaniards attempt to escape Tenochtitlan, the great Mexica capital, where they've been holed up, effectively become prisoners. Moctezuma, the emperor, is dead. The man who had perhaps originally been their captor had ended up their

prisoner. And the question is, will they be able to get out well so this is the night of the 30th of june and 1st of july 1520 the night known to all spanish school children and i guess mexican school children as anoche triste the sad night the night of tears now one night earlier cortez had had a council with his capt you said, Tom, yesterday we discussed how they had become prisoners within the palace in the center of Tenochtitlan, surrounded by very angry Aztecs. I think it's fair to say, to quote, horrible histories. They have no food. They have no water.

They've run out of gunpowder. The palace walls have been battered by their assailants. Two of those captains you mentioned, Alvarado and Ordaz, had said to Cortés, we have to escape. We have to get out. Cortés actually didn't want to. Alvarado had been banged on the head, hasn't he, by a rock. So how's he feeling? He's very cross. He had actually said to Montezuma that this was incredibly poor behavior by the Mexica in hitting him on the head with a stone. But he's recovered, has he?

Montezuma pointed out perfectly reasonably that Alvarado just killed about 500 people. Oh, you know, fair play. But Alvarado was back up and about, presumably with a bandage or something. Now, the thing is, they win the day. Cortes didn't want to leave because he said, we might lose a lot of our gold. He's obsessed with the gold. Of course he is. Yeah.

But the others say, listen, we've got to go. We can't stay here any longer. No one's going to come and rescue us. There just one causeway left the western causeway and even there the aztecs have dismantled many of the bridges across the different channels the sort of canals and channels so you mentioned magarino and the wooden bridge one of his lieutenants a guy called francisco rodriguez magarino said to them why don't we knock down all the doors of the palace the internal doors and make a makeshift bridge out planks basically and we can use that to get across the canals. So that night, the 30th of June, they pack up as much of the treasure as they can.

They have native porters and they have mares carrying these boxes. There's a huge mob of them. I mean, there's a thousand men. They must have slaves. They must have servants with them as well who aren't mentioned in the sources. Bernal Diaz, the great chronicler, memoirist, although of course, how much is he making up? We don't know. He says, we began to move forward at about the hour of midnight. It was rather dark, a thin mist hung over the town and gentle rain was falling. So they're creeping out. Through Dominic, in your tremendous prose, A Shroud of Silence. Yes, yes. And of course, a shroud, I mean, you know, that's what you lay of the dead, isn't it?

Yeah, so ominous. See what you're doing there. See what you're doing there. It's actually such fine writing. And for those people who don't know, it's the latest volume of the Adventures in Time series, The Fall of the Aztecs, available now. I think you're best. That's kind of you, Tom. That's very kind of you.

I mean, they're all brilliant, but I think this is absolutely the best. So they make it through the streets and it's odd. Again, it's one of those odd details that if you're reading with a sceptical eye, you think, how did that happen? Why was there nobody to see them? Why were Mashika warriors not waiting, thinking that they might do just this? Possibly is it another trap? We don't know. Anyway, they go through the streets. We're now into the early hours of the morning. They're carrying planks and this makeshift bridge and whatnot. And actually, they get across the first three channels perfectly well. I mean, there's a huge column of them, must have been.

Very quiet. They're horseshoes, muffled, as we said, cloths. And the story is that they get to the fourth channel. And it's taken a long time. So some very, very early birds are perhaps getting up or something. And there's a local woman who has gone to get water from the lake. And she's filling her buckets. And she looks up and sees them, Tom, and screams. And at the moment that she screams, they're getting away. They're trying to escape.

Suddenly, there's a great kind of banging and trumpeting from the top of one of the temple pyramids. And a priest is shouting, captains, warriors, Mexicans, our enemies are escaping. Follow them in your boats. Cut them off. Destroy them. And at that point, it all kicks off. I mean, all hell breaks loose so what follows

is an incredibly apocalyptic scene so it's dark the sun has not yet risen so this possibly suggests it could be a trap the speed with which the mashika fall on them also large quantities coming out in canoes canoes i mean who's who's hanging around in a canoe at that hour two o'clock in the morning and that would work best if they're right in the middle of the causeway and they've got nowhere to retreat. Of course. And also, they're all armed with spears, aren't they? Because they come canoeing up and jab up at the horses. They do. That's exactly what they do. So most of the Spaniards are on the causeway and the Aztecs pile in from all sides. In the darkness, it's just an absolute chaos of screaming

and spears and arrows flying through the air and bloodshed. Lots of people start falling into their lake. The wooden bridge collapses under the weight of people, but also because the Mexica are stabbing it with their spears to splinter it. So that collapses and all the people on the bridge fall in. The mares carrying the treasure fall in. Some Spaniards go in after them. Cortez. Yeah. Gold. The Aztecs are piling in all around them. The air is full of blood and shrieking and shouting and total chaos. They have cannons with them that fall in. So Dominic, in this scenario, probably best to be in the vanguard, right? Absolutely, it scenario, probably best to be in the vanguard, right? Absolutely it is. And worse to be in the rear guard. Yes, yes. I mean, as we said,

the vanguard, Sanderbal and Ordath, they get across. Now they are taken with them. Malinche, they have taken Alvarado's slash Carlin bride, Donia Luisa. Because she is a kind of living link of the alliance, isn't she? Living symbol of it. Living link of the alliance. And the one of all those sort of brides that we know most about, that he seems to have had a genuine attachment to, or they formed a genuine attachment anyway. They've killed all their other hostages except one, and that is Montezuma's 11-year-old daughter, Tequich Pochtin, who ends up being given a Spanish name. And big spoiler alert, she ends up living with Hernan Cortes. Almost every woman in this story ends up living with Hernan Cortes at some point. And whether

this is entirely voluntary is very dubious to say the least. So they've taken her with them. In this incredible chaotic scene, bodies are toppling into the water. The treasure is lost. The horses have fallen into the water. Bernard Diaz says, the people shouting, help, help, they're killing me. Lots of people are clambering over the bodies in their desperation to get across the channels. The whole thing is filling up with blood. And the bridge, does the bridge last?

The bridge has been destroyed. So if you're stranded, you're stuffed? Well, you're either stuffed or you have to swim. You have to jump in and swim and hope to get across. Of course, a lot of the Spaniards can't swim. Yeah, and they've got their armour on, haven't they? Plus, the thing is filled up with the bodies of your mates. There are stories about people managing to clamber across on a kind of bridge of corpses.

Yeah. Of course, all the time, people are firing arrows at you. The canoes. Canoes charging in at you. Yeah. I mean, a lot of canoe action going on. Lots of canoe action. So it really is a scene of total apocalyptic bloodshed and chaos cortez himself gets across

and he's covered in water and mud and blood and all sorts yeah he's lost all his gold he's lost all his gold he's in a terrible state he looks around him on the bank who else is there malinche has got across donia luisa has got across tech. Tequich Potsen, the 11-year-old girl, has vanished. Lordly daughter. They assume at the time, probably dead. Yeah. Cortes' servant is dead. Lots of the people he knew back on Cuba. Now, what about Alvarado? Because he's commanding the rear guard. Alvarado pitches up. Of course he pitches up. He's one of those people. He's like a cockroach. He pitches up and Cortes says to him, where's the rear guard? Where are all the rest of the men? And Alvarado says, some of them are here and the ones who aren't here, forget about them.

Move on. Yeah. Losers. Yeah. Don't be such a bore. But that shroud of silence, Dominic. Yeah. That shroud of silence has now been draped over the corpses of many a Spaniard. Probably 600 Spaniards are dead. Right. And just to say, presumably lots of these are the guys who signed up back on the coast thinking it was going to be loads of gold and women and it'd be tremendous. Yeah. Thinking it was a walkover.

Yeah. I mean, they must have died cursing Cortez, I imagine. Yeah. I mean, they must have died cursing Cortez, I imagine. But presumably also one of the effects of this is that eyewitnesses to what's been going on, I mean, lots of them have died now. The people who came with Cortez right from the beginning, I mean, it kind of makes it easier to rewrite the story, doesn't it? It does. And this is such, it's such a good point you raised there, Tom. It really is such a good point is it oh no because i think it's i hadn't thought of saying that but it goes to the historiography and i know you like

talking about historiography love it because the account that we have which is dominated by cortez is skewed by the very fact that cortez didn't die yeah i mean you've described alvarado as a cockroach i mean cortez is the cockroach to end all cockroaches. Yes, he is. It's astonishing the scrapes he gets out of. It's incredible that, a big spoiler, Hernan Cortez will die peacefully in his bed. And there just seems to be no justice or logic in that at all. Because so many of the people that he had initially left Cuba with die either now or in the next year or two. I mean, sometimes they're killed by each other later on when they fall out, or they're killed in fighting against the Aztecs or whatever. But Cortes is unusual in going all the way through and not dying. And that means that

he can then rewrite the story with himself as the protagonist, himself as the star, the great captain, the general, the planner. Because if he had died in the Noche Triste, I mean, firstly, I imagine it's improbable that the campaign would have continued. He seems to be very much the guiding light for that. But also the story would be very different, wouldn't it? I mean, there'd be no one to make his case. He'd be cast as a kind of headstrong idiot who had ignored orders and led thousands of Spaniards to their deaths. Absolutely, he would. Because this, the Notte Trista, is an utter catastrophe. They lose all their cannons. They lose almost all of their horses. They had Tlaxcalan allies, and they're all dead. And all their gold is gone. The one thing that they had made the trip for is

lost. And this is when Cortes writes to the king, isn't it? Yes, after this. Giving his spin about how Mo Montezuma had surrendered. I've been cheated. I've been terribly cheated because Montezuma gave us his kingdom. Right. He gave you, your majesty, the kingdom. Correct. Yes. I mean, that's the thing because he's trying to... I'm only thinking about you, your majesty. Because basically his failure is total at this point. Total. And actually it's said, he must know it at some point, it is said that afterwards, this very famous scene going to Spanish children's books, Cortes sits under this huge tree crying

in floods of tears because it has all gone so horribly wrong. And yet there's still that sliver of ice. And I can still see Michael Wood telling the story in his brilliant TV series, Conquistadors. Cortes pulls himself together and says to his men, I just want to know one thing. Is Martin Lopez, who's a kind of carpenter who's built ships for him before, says, is Martin Lopez alive? Did he make it? And they say, he's been wounded, but he's still alive.

And Cortés smiles and he says, vamos, que nada nos falta. Let us go then, for we lack nothing. Meaning, we've got all we need. Let's crack on. He's looking ahead to the climactic battle that has to come. He's looking ahead. I can believe that story, actually, because Cortés clearly,

it's one of the miraculous things about him that mean that he's not a mediocrity. He does look ahead and he is already thinking, okay, fine, that didn't go to plan. What next? But even then, they set off again. They head back. They trudge back up into the mountains. They're being harried the whole time by Mexica attacks and Mexica allies, kind of guerrilla attacks. I mean, they could have been finished off then and there, but they somehow make it back. And again, this is a timeless scene, isn't it? From colonial history that will follow. The retreat from Kabul. Yeah, absolutely. And

then they make it back to Tlaxcala. Right. And so this is the key question, isn't it? What are the Tlaxcalans going to do? Are they going to wash their hands or are they going to stick with the alliance? So Tom, I've written in my notes in capital letters. Well, you can read it. Yes. A key moment in Mexican, even world history. What will the Tlaxcalans do? So Dominic, what will the Tlaxcalans do? So the Tlaxcalans could finish them off then and there. They're down to hundreds.

They're absolutely bedraggled. They've lost the cannons, the horses. They're very miserable. Most of the Spaniards, I mean, they must be asking questions about Cortes. And what is more, Montezuma has now got a successor called Cuitlahuec. And he sends messages to Tlaxcala. We may have differed and quarreled in the past, but now one bond unites us all to destroy these flipping Spaniards.

And he says to the Tlaxcalans, come on, let's have an eternal alliance, bury the hatchet, kill the Spaniards. And some of the Tlaxcalans say, yeah, yeah, let's do it. This is a good idea. There's a guy who's always been suspicious of them called Chico Tencatl the Younger, because there's Chico Tencatl the Older. Yeah, I guess that. He has always been suspicious of the Spaniards. And he says, Tom, quite rightly, they are a plague of ravenous grasshoppers. They will never stop. Let's end this now. But there is another way of spinning that, isn't there? And that perspective is spun by Donna Luisa, the Tlaxcalan princess,

who's Marin Alvarado. Because she makes exactly the point that they are indeed like grasshoppers and plagues of them are going to be coming. There is no stopping them. So this is what I guess would be Moctezuma's position as well, that it doesn't matter if you get rid of Cortes, it doesn't matter if you get rid of the Spaniards who are in Tlaxcala now, more will be coming. And therefore you want to be on the side of this plague of grasshoppers. Which you could argue is true. Well, it is absolutely true. I mean, it is true. Of course, if they had killed Cortes, I think it's reasonable to say European colonizers would

have arrived eventually. Now, maybe the Spanish would have been slower to arrive. Maybe they'd have been warned off and they'd have stayed away for 10 years or so, but maybe not. Maybe it would just have been a year or two. Somebody else, Velazquez, Diego Colon, whoever. There's gold, isn't there, Dominic? There's gold. Yeah. I mean, the gold is already back in, it's been seen in Europe. Yes, exactly. So there's no way that they wouldn't be coming. So Chico Tencatl's father says to his son, no, this is a historic opportunity, but the opportunity is to destroy the Mexica, not the Spaniards. We use the Spaniards.

So they take the Spaniards in, they bandage their wounds, they feed them. Cortes has two fingers amputated, doesn't he? He does, exactly. The Spaniards are in a terrible condition. Malinche, and as you say, Luisa, I think they are absolutely central figures in this, almost certainly doing most of the negotiating. Some of Cortes' men, I think at this point, we do get hints of discontent. Some of Cortes' men are not happy with this point, we do get hints of discontent. Some of Cortez's men are not happy with this arrangement. And they say to Cortez, please now, enough. This has been a disaster. Let's go home. Our heads are broken. Our bodies are rotting. We're covered with wounds

and sores. We're in a strange land. We're sick and surrounded by enemies. I mean, this is very Alexander the Great in India, Tom, the sort of mutiny of the men who say, God almighty, can you not call a halt now? And Cortes, very Alexander the Great style, says no. And he is given by the sources this rousing speech. Every nation which ruled the world lost one or two battles. Which great captain never lost a battle? We are Christians. We should trust to God. He will never let us be defeated. And cliche alert, fortune favors the brave. And amazingly, he obviously had let us be defeated. And cliche alert, fortune favours the brave. And amazingly, he obviously had the gift of the gab, Cortes. He was good at persuading people.

There's no revolt against him from his own men. Yeah. So he can appeal to glory, but presumably he's also saying that city is absolutely stuffed with wealth. We can have it. I mean, that wouldn't be in the oratory, but that must be part of what he was saying as well. But I think what's a puzzle at this point, or what remains murky, is this renewed alliance with the Tlaxcalans. How much is this the Tlaxcalans agreeing to help the Spaniards, or is the boot very much on the other foot now? Well, that depends on your perspective, doesn't it? Because most Tlaxcalans presumably are not aware of the resources that the Spanish ultimately can command. So they're looking at the ragged survivors of the Noche Triste and presumably thinking, well, these are people that we are employing. They are entirely dependent on us.

Yes. But if you're Don Luisa, or indeed Cortez, you'll be thinking, we just need to maintain this alliance a bit longer. And then in time, we will have the whip hand. We'll be in we just need to maintain this alliance a bit longer and then in time we will have the whip hand we'll be in the driving seat yeah and actually they'll get the whip hand much more quickly and smoothly than they think because of the secret biological weapon that is about to arrive yeah no spoilers yet but i mean the thing is that in essence for the trash carlins absolutely this seems like a war between them and the mexica it It does. And so it is in terms of numbers. And so it is in terms of Cortes' ability to influence it, presumably, because without numbers, you don't have influence. But in the long run,

it's Cortes who has a better understanding of the geopolitics of it, because no one in Mexico has any idea about really what lies beyond the sea, whereas Cortes completely does. Yeah, I think that's fair. It's funny because we advertised that we were doing this on Twitter and I read the responses and some people said, you know, whatever you think of it, it is an amazing adventure story and all this.

And there has been an element of the adventure story as gory and as dark as it's been. But from this point, it stops being an adventure story and actually becomes a story of an exceedingly brutal war, terror and starvation and attrition.

And again, looking forward to the colonial wars that will follow. Yeah, it does anticipate that. The historian that we've mentioned most, Matthew Restle, is brilliant on this. And he says, we should think of this as what it is, which is an incredibly violent, bloody war in which there's an awful lot of violence against civilians. There is rape and plunder on a massive scale. Why are the conquistadors so violent? There's an argument that it's because they have been desensitized to violence and they seek revenge after what they have already suffered. But it also makes strategic sense, doesn't it? It does to intimidate. And it also reproduces the violence that they have already

done in Hispaniola and on Cuba. This is why we dwelt so much on Cortes in the Caribbean. And now they're exporting that violence onto the mainland and turning it, with the Tlaxcalans' consent, against the cities that side with Mexica rather than the Tlaxcalans. But it's slightly different, well, I mean, very different to Hispaniola and Cuba to the extent that on those islands, the Spanish have overwhelming military superiority because there's no one strong enough to oppose them, either in terms of numbers or in military ability. In Mexico, it's slightly different. But Cortes obviously understands that the only way that he and the Tlaxcalans can secure victory is if the Spanish continue to be seen as, by miles, the most

lethal fighting force in Mexico. Because if they don't have that aura of terror, then they're nothing. And I mean, the issue of, you know, are they just mercenaries being employed by the Tlaxcalans? The more brutal they are, the less that is a risk that they have to run, because instead they will come to be seen as, by miles, the most frightening figures in the kind of the terrible game that is now risk that they have to run because instead they will come to be seen as, by miles, the most frightening figures in the kind of the terrible game that is now being played out. Don't you think? Yes, I absolutely think. I agree with you, Tom.

It's a key strategic aim. It's a strategy of terror from the very beginning. So let's take a break and we will come back and we will talk about how the war begins, what's been happening in Tenochtitlan, and we will also talk about an entirely new dimension to this story. Biological. Which is the biological dimension. So we'll come back after the break. Okay, see you then. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com.

That's therestisentertainment.com. Hello, welcome back to The Rest Is History. And as we were saying before the break, the story, which has been kind of dark pretty much from the beginning, now becomes very somber, very bloody. I mean, one of the great tragic narratives in world history, really. Man's humanity to man, Dominic. Oh, Tom, that's very profound. But also, as we said, there is a new dimension, which is the eruption across Mexico of a terrible new disease. And I think we should look at that first.

Okay. If you want to look at that first. So this is the arrival in Mexico, in Tenochtitlan, of smallpox. So smallpox had already been known in the Caribbean. Smallpox, of course, was everywhere in Europe. So most of the Spaniards will have come into contact with it, although no people have come into contact with it. Many of them will have had smallpox scars. When Columbus and the first explorers and so on, when they arrived in Hispaniola, they brought smallpox with them.

It swept through the Caribbean and effectively, to be very simplistic, it wiped out, in the long run virtually the entire Taino population. And this is why it has, again, a kind of seismic impact because the Spaniards still need labor and so they start looking to Africa for slaves. Exactly. They'd already used African slaves in the Canary Islands and the plantations there. Now they start to bring African slaves, which wasn't their original plan at all, but they

start to bring them to Hispaniola and Cuba and Jamaica and so on, because they've run out of indigenous workers. They haven't deliberately killed that workforce, by the way. So some people argue about genocide. They didn't mean to kill them. They wanted to keep them alive. To work in their minds. To work in their minds, exactly.

Smallpox probably arrived in Mexico with Narbaez, not with Cortez, because there's no hint of it during cortez's first journey because basically all you need is a little scab on a cloak or something and that's enough you just need one person one person there's a story people have kind of fingered a culprit an african porter called francisco aguia but who knows if that's true or not or whether it's actually i mean it's very convenient they blame an african porter rather than a spaniard what's not in doubt though, is that the people of Mexico have no immunity to smallpox at all. So once it's arrived in the Abayas party, it spreads it on the coast, village after village. There are stories of villages deserted, of kind of jackals

and vultures feasting on the remains of the people in these towns where literally everybody has died. As one chronicler puts it, everything fell apart and it falls apart because these are communities, as in Europe, that depend on the harvest, that depend on there being a regular workforce. And if there's no one to sow and to reap and to grind, you've got no food. So people start to starve on top of that. People are starving on the coast. So by the way, when more Spaniards arrive, they find the coast deserted, the people weak and desperate, easy pickings. No one to stop them arriving and more Spaniards arrive by sea. Meanwhile, it's heading inland. By late September, smallpox has arrived in Tlaxcala, where it kills about a third of the population probably.

And so that must rebalance then the relationship between Cortez and the Tlaxcala. Exactly. Definitely, Tom. Definitely. And then it starts to move, of course, it is carried further west into the Valley of Mexico, across the lake and into Tenochtitlan. So in Tenochtitlan itself, what has happened after the Noche Triste? We don't really know what the Mexica are thinking. Well, they must be thinking, ah, God, they got away. But some of them maybe think we've taught them a lesson they won't be back some of them may fear they will be back i mean who knows i think

they must be thinking we've goofed do you think so the whole point was to wipe them out if they escape you know they know how dangerous they are and don't forget they kill two-thirds of them sure but i think that anyone who's seen what the Spaniards are capable of will know that it's not good for them still to be out there. Which is presumably why Kuitlahuak, who is the new emperor, who is Montezuma's brother, who has taken over, why he sent a message to Tlaxcala saying, let's team up and get rid of them. However, Kuitlahuak, about whom we know almost nothing, because he lasted about 80 days as

emperor, because he gets smallpox. Smallpox, of course, doesn't discriminate between rich and poor. We have Nahuatl accounts of sores breaking out on people's heads, people lying in their beds as if they were dead, unable even to lift their heads. When they moved at all, they screamed in pain. Many died from the plague, but others died from hunger. They were too weak to look for food while everybody else was too ill to care for them. So they starved to death where they lay. I mean, it's like if Europe, while it was being hit by the Black Death, suddenly got

invaded by, I don't know, the Chinese. Yeah, that's exactly it, isn't it, Tom? The effect on Mexica society, I mean, the trauma, the arrival of the Spaniards, the death of Montezuma, the death of his brother, who's just taken over as emperor, the spread of this plague. I mean, they must be in shock. And actually, they're fortunate in some ways that the next emperor, who is Montezuma's cousin, the next guy to be chosen is called Cuauhtémoc. So this is the guy that we mentioned in the previous episode as a possible culprit in

the killing of Montezuma. I mean, almost certainly not, but... He's a Spaniard skeptic, I think it's fair to say, Tom. He's always been very suspicious of them. He is clearly a very formidable person. On his first day as emperor, he rounds up six of Moctezuma's sons and he has them executed.

Very kind of Ottoman behavior, isn't it, Tom? It gets rid of all the competition. I mean, it's not just competition also, Dave. It's the kind of the doves. So his name actually means falling eagle, doesn't it? Yes. He's very much a hawk, one might say. And Montezuma's sons were much more dovish in their attitude towards the Spaniards. So by getting rid of them, he's not just getting rid of rivals,

he's also getting rid of political opposition. Of appeasers. Of appeasers, yes. And then he marries Montezuma's daughter, Tocquech Pozzin, so the the hostage, who looked like she might have died in the Night of Tears. Actually, she didn't die. She was rescued from the lake by Meshika, recognized, taken back to the court, and Quauhtemoc marries her. So that's a way of uniting the various branches of the family. It's very Henry Tudor after the Battle of Bosworth, isn't it? Yeah. So he's in charge, and he seems to be an impressive guy, actually. There's no reason to doubt that he's quite a formidable person. However, not only is he facing the smallpox, he's also facing a campaign the like of which the Mexica have never seen before, because the conquistadors are determined to wage a European-style war. And Cortes' strategy is very clever. So you mentioned Terra, Tom. The first target is a hill town called Tepeaca, and that commands the trade route from the Valley of Mexico to the

coast. Because, Dominic, the size of the city means that it is dependent on imports. Yeah. Otherwise it's going to starve. It's always been unusual, actually, to Nostitlan, because it doesn't have lots of farmlands of its own. So they do have these floating gardens, but it's in a lake. So they've always depended on tribute payments from other places. And actually, one argument for the rise of the Aztecs is that because they didn't have farmlands, they didn't have to spend lots of time faffing around with the harvest. No, like the Spartans.

Yeah, they were freer to go off and fight people. Well, Tepeaca commands this really important trade route. Cortes hits that first, but he hits it in an absolutely ruthless, gruesome way. You astound me. All the women and children are rounded up and they have the letter G stamped on their cheeks with a red-hot brand, meaning war, G for getter, and they are sold as slaves. The surviving men are dragged back to Tlaxcala to be sacrificed. And the story goes that others are torn apart by dogs. And there are even rumors that they are chopped up in butcher

shops before being feasted on by the Tlaxcalans in the victory banquet. Now, of course, some of these stories may be wildly exaggerated or completely untrue. But it doesn't redound to the Spanish credit, does it? No, it doesn't. You know, that their allies are doing this. Cortes would say, you know what Cortes would say if he came as an unexpected guest on the rest of his history? He would say, listen, mate, I wasn't playing badminton on a Sunday afternoon. Yeah, right. But I mean, he'd be, you know, doing the slaughter. That's what you have to do. I mean, that's the way it is. But sacrificing

people to demons and eating them in victory feasts, no Christian is going to boast about doing that or even admit that he's been complicit in it. So where are those stories coming from? That's a good question, actually, Tom. Where are those stories coming from? Some of those stories are from indigenous sources. So it could be Mexica anti-clashcala propaganda. Of course. I mean, I think there are hints of these stories in some of the Spanish accounts, actually. The Spanish accounts don't really stint on the brutality. No, but I'm just saying that there's a qualitative difference between the kind of brutality that you'd wage in a European war and human sacrifice and cannibalism.

There is, I suppose. I mean, it's a fine distinction though, isn't it, Tom? No, no. It's all right to massacre loads of people, but not to eat them? No, absolutely not. I mean, you know, in the European context, killing people in battle is one thing. Eating them and sacrificing them to demons

is unacceptable. Crossing a line, Dominic. Okay. That's where you and I would just have to disagree, Tom. Because I think... You know, I'm not saying that as a kind of moralist

or a philosopher. As a wokist. No, I'm saying that in the context of Christian culture... Yeah, of course. I know what you're saying. Sacrificing people to demons... I know what you're saying. Sacrificing people to demons.

I know what you're saying. Well, stop. You're saying, how does Cortez square that? I'm not even saying that because Cortez has to lump it because he knows he has to deal with his allies. I'm just saying that it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that those things actually happened because the Christians have no stake in propagating stories like that. Oh, I agree with you completely, by the way.

I totally agree with you. That's all I'm saying. In Cortez's letters and so on, he downplays the involvement of the Tlaxcala. Yeah, he doesn't want to mention that. So not only Tlaxcala, but later on, they'll have another ally in Texcoco, and that's very important as well in taking control of the lake. And again, that's often lost, not just in the Spaniards' own accounts, but in later romantic versions of the story, the William Prescott in the 19th century or something, where it's seen as Spaniards' own accounts. But in later kind of romantic versions of the story, the kind of William Prescott in the 19th century or something, where it's seen as Spaniards versus

Aztecs, it was never like that. Spaniards were always outnumbered by their indigenous allies. But more Spaniards are starting to arrive, aren't they? Yes. So in late 1520 now, and there are ships arriving from Cuba, Hispaniola, or even from Spain all the time. And they're bringing supplies of guns and crossbows and horses, but above all, they are bringing more and more people. And so what is Cortes' status vis-a-vis Velázquez and Charles V back in Spain now? This is still very uncertain. Nothing has legally been settled. So Cortes is actually pursuing this enterprise without any form really of legal sanction. He's got the stuff about the

town. I've just been appointed by the town council of Vera Cruz. That was his claim. But he doesn't have any letter from the king saying, you are the governor, you are the viceroy, anything like that. So the people who are coming, these are- Glory hunters. Yeah, glory hunters, entrepreneurial fighters. But but presumably i mean you know wisdom of the crowds they think yeah we're onto a good thing here they do we can make money now a key part of this story if we just move for thousands of miles east charles v the great king of spain but also the emperor ruler of huge swathes of Europe, is in the Low Countries, proceeding around. And with him, he has brought the gold that Cortes originally sent back. And his men

have put it on as an exhibition in Brussels Town Hall, magnificent, late medieval Renaissance building. On the 27th of August, 1520- Oh, this is Albrecht Durer. A young man called Albrecht Durer goes to see it. And he's blown away, isn't he? Yeah, an extraordinary account. I saw the things which had been brought to the king from the new land of gold. I saw a sun all of gold, a whole fathom broad, a moon all of silver of the same size, two rooms of armour, and all manner of wondrous weapons,

very strange clothing and all kinds of wonderful objects. All the days of my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these things, for I saw among them wonderful works of art, and I marveled at the subtle ingenuity of men in foreign lands. I mean, I wonder about that word ingenuity. I wonder if it's coming from ingenio. It is. It is. Yes. Which would perhaps more properly be described as genius. So the genius of a people. Yes. It's often left in the original. I think ingenuity downplays it. I think it's recognising this is amazing.

Yeah. I mean, it's not just that they're ingenious. They have a distinctive quality that we would never have guessed. I think you're absolutely right, Tom. I think Jura is completely blown away by it. I think most people in Europe are stunned and staggered. I think it gives the lie, actually, that passage, the idea that people in Europe immediately saw the peoples of the New World as backwards and as lesser,

because Jura certainly doesn't. I think they had done, hadn't they, with the Tainos? Yeah. I think the general feeling of disappointment. Yes. But the revelation of these treasures and then the reports coming back saying it's better than Venice, I guess that is changing. Definitely it is. So this is a qualitative difference from the stuff that was coming

back in the 1490s. This blows people's minds. It's like you've discovered an alien civilization and it's not some sort of Beatles kind of messing around in rock formations. Yeah, blobs of amoeba. This is a glittering city. And of course, when people see this and the word spreads, people are printing reports of it and writing letters to each other, very excited. Of course, loads of people are going to pile in. Hundreds and then thousands. Isn't there also, there's a report that appears, so this is the first illustration of Tenochtitlan in any European source. I think it's published in Nuremberg. Yeah, Nuremberg. Yeah. And it's part of a newsletter that is set out by the bankers in

Nuremberg. So they are obviously immediately waking up. It's probably not the artistic quality of the metal work that's appealing to them, but the fact that it glitters. Of course. So they know what is out there. And so all of which presumably is fueling enthusiasm, not just in the West Indies, but in Europe for people to go out there. Absolutely, Tom. And they're going to bring those two things for which the indigenous peoples are completely

unrepaired. One of them is the weaponry. So the swords, the guns, all that business. A cannon. And they're going to bring germs and more viruses that will cause enormous damage to the peoples of the Americas. So let's get to Christmas 1520, end of the year. Cortes spends the winter back in Tlaxcala. He's already started to knock out some of the towns and cities that are loyal to Tenochtitlan. We're not obviously going to go through them all. He has cut most of Tenochtitlan's links to the coast,

and his plan is very clear. He will strangle the heartland of the Mexica, of the Aztec empire. He will confine them to the lake. He will win control of the lake towns. He will cut off their supplies of food and water. This is completely different from the campaigns that the Aztecs are used to fighting. They're used to those flower wars, these ritualized, almost, they're kind of sacral, aren't they, Tom? People dressing up as owls. Yes. Something about that. Yeah, we'll be coming back to people dressing up as owls later on.

I love an episode that features someone dressing up as an owl. So they are used to these campaigns where you take prisoners for sacrifice, not where you starve people out and you fight over months and months of very long campaign, a European style campaign, a war of attrition. And this is Cortez's plan. Slash Garland's are kind of happy to go along with it. They have their own internal issues because of course, they've got smallpox. They have some faction fighting, but basically they go along with him. The story goes that on the 27th of December, Cortes prepares to go for phase two. He gathers his men in the main temple in Tlaxcala. And he says, as you would expect, he would, he says, this is a great crusade. We're going to win Mexico for Christ and so on. And then a rare

moment of honesty. He says, it just so happens that this campaign will bring us both honor and profit, two things that very rarely go together. Yeah. Well, that's Cortez. To in a nutshell, isn't it? So on New Year's Eve, they hit the town of Texcoco, which is the second city of the Aztec Triple Alliance. There's a whole issue with a massive succession crisis that's been going on in Texcoco. Don't go there, Dominic. Yeah, I'm not going to go there.

I actually find it very hard to follow. It's a very beautiful city. It's an artistic center. It's a crucial breadbasket for the Aztecs. And Cortes takes it amid scenes of extreme violence. He sacks the city, they loot and burn. It was famous for its beautifully decorated maps and books. They're all burned.

So these fantastic sources that might have shed so much light on this story are destroyed. It's on the lake, so it's a key naval base. Right, and that shipwright who has survived, presumably, is still with Cortes. Martin Lopez. He is back in Tlaxcala and he is building a fleet. Not a massive fleet, 12 ships, brigantines. But enough.

But enough. Just before he makes the ships, Cortés is moving around the lake, taking town after town. One town we will mention. It's a town called Iztapalapan. And it's that town that if you've been listening to this whole series, you will remember. The Spaniards arrived there before they first met Montezuma. And Bernal Diaz talked about how beautiful it was, the gardens with the channels where you could canoe down to the lake, the beautiful mansions. And he said, it's like something from a romance. It's like something from amadis this chivalric romance and bernal diaz said how sad it was to remember it because not a stone is left standing

the reason not a stone is left standing is what cortez does now he and his men go in and they destroy the town they absolutely destroy it and they send a message around the lake if you don't back us if you don't give in straight away, we will utterly destroy you. Very Mongol behavior. Very Mongol. And town after town around the lake surrenders, throws their lot in with the Tlaxcalans and the Spaniards. And then in late February,

Martin Lopez, who's been back making these ships, the guy who had survived the Notte Trees and gladdened Cortez's heart, he finally arrives in Texcoco on the lakeshore with 12 ships being carried overland by hundreds of Tlaxcalan porters. And when he pitches up, Cortes now has the fleet that he needs to begin the final assault on the great city of Tenochtitlan. And that will be the theme of our next episode, which you can either hear in due course, or you can hear straight away simply by joining

the Restless History Club. People will never tire of you saying that, Tom. Do you know, I feel bad about saying it because, you know, the past half hour has been so grim. I mean, this is effectively the destruction of an extraordinary civilization. I do feel a bit bad about using it to monetize, but whatever. The spirit of the European greed burns strong within me. If it makes you feel better, I don't think the Aztec civilization was totally destroyed. And we'll discuss this in the final episode. Okay. All right. I'll rephrase that. The cities that had impressed even the conquistadors as the most exquisite cityscapes that they had ever seen in the process of being

obliterated. And Tenochtitlan itself is now in the firing line. So anyway, I just feel a bit bad about it, but not that bad. I'm still flogging it. They were entrepreneurial in their own way, the Aztecs. Yeah. Well, they were going out and conquering people and all that malarkey. They're listening to this podcast. They would say at the end, as Theo always does, tell them about the club. What about the club?

Wouldn't they? Yeah. It's what Wistipochli would want. It is exactly. It's our own version of the Triple Alliance. That's what it is. Right. On that bombshell, we'll see you all next time for the Siege of Tenochtitlan.

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