Part One: Francisco Solano Lopez: The Worst Military Leader In Human History

(upbeat music) - Cool, sir, 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 think we have to say that. James Stout, hey James, how you doing? - I love it, I'm great, I feel very welcome after that. - Dr. James Stout. - Dr. James Stout. - Dr. James Stout, yeah, I'm using it again. I'm previously only used it for, you know, credit card companies and people who are rude to me. - James. - Bring me back. - Bringing it back. James, you are currently the co-host of one among several that do the, it could happen here, Daily News Show also on CoolZone that we host, and you have a new podcast coming out. Something sexy and exciting. And did I say new? New. - Yeah. Very exciting, yeah, coming out on the 17th of August where we're good podcasts are given away for free. It's called Natural Causes, and we're gonna be talking about going outside, specifically like the politics of going outside, I guess, in 2086, that's a big deal. - We are just touching grass. - Yeah, it's just gonna be me. - Grass being on fire. - Why is, you know? - It's not. - It's not. - It's just like an ASMR meditation app. (all laughing) - James is an animal. - James is gaming you for being on the internet. You just turn on the podcast, turn off your phone now. Go outside. - James, what are some early episodes folks can look out for? - Yeah, so we're gonna start, I think, with looking at a couple of things, I'm gonna look at cyclospora, the cyclospora outbreak, which you've seen across the Midwest now. Spreading further west. - Yeah. - And what that could tell us about the rights, farm workers, about where our food comes from, and the people who decide if it's safe. We're gonna 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. I spent a lot of time on the Colville Tribes Reservation and Spokane Tribes Reservation. A lot of those folks, I think, maybe got missed out of the big fire story when by the time it goes into suburban areas, but we're gonna look at what we can learn from indigenous people about living with fire. I wanna talk about how your raincoat could be putting little bits of plastic inside fish. And Havillina, that would be a fun one. I wanna talk about Havillina because they fucking hate golf, and so do I. - So, I like Havillina, but I mainly like eating them mixed with other more palatable meats. I'm a redneck meat connoisseur, you know, and I do this the days of eating Havillina. If you know what you're doing, you can make a pretty decent sausage, but that is one of the ingredients. - Okay, I can see that. Yeah, it's like a, it's not a pig, it's a peckery, but I'm sure it probably has enough. - It's close. - Some found it, yeah. - It's close enough. - But can you usually mix it? (laughing) - You want them go finished if you're gonna make sausage out of them, you know. - Yeah, that's the best way. - Or you mix it with, you know, some Jimmy Dean. You know, James, it's appropriate that you've gotta show about going outside because their subject for this week is a man who should never have gone outside. You 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 interested in being familiar 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, 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 he is so bad at running a war. It's a fascinating story of a guy who is 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. 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 I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. - If you're a bookshelf and you're a 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 deserve 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, so obsessed. - Listen to Pro Society on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Did you hear the new episode of the Hey Jonas podcast? - We are at D23, so we'll see who stops by. - The cast of Frozen Sapt by Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, and Adina Menzel. - I audition for Frozen. - What? - For Kristoff. - They said, "Okay, what are you gonna be singing today?" I said, "I don't know." - That must have been why you didn't get it. - That's probably why. - Plus, John Stamos, Hayden Christensen, from Star Wars, and more. - And I guess I can share that. - Oh, listen. - And then to the latest episode of Hey Jonas, and the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus, or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose Option B. I'm Julie Pignero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the I Heart 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, and in 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 wanted to be considered the Napoleon of Latin America, kind of afterwards, but is just much worse at everything than Boulevard was. So South America, while kind of this is happening in the early 1800s, 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 that 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 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, and 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 run from our capital. Why are there a different country than us? If you bought me on here as a British person to talk about places that Argentina thinks it should be governing. Yes. (laughing) The British are experts on places that Argentina should be governing. Something. (laughing) Did you have a great, yeah. I made a comment about like wars that are fought, were 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 false ones in 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 pep in our step, the British Empire, you know? Yeah, those people were, there were a lot of people who were extremely excited for a colonial war. And guys, yes, Argentina was not in the right, but come on. It wasn't that hard a thing. (laughing) Now there was Panama or fucking Grenada. Don't get me wrong, or desert storm. Yeah, that's another one. Yeah, so the region, Paraguay, so we're getting back to Paraguay. Argentina and see it as basically a client state war, 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 Urba, right? Like, you know, Urba Mate, like, yeah, it's like, that's what fucking Paraguay makes, right? That is like the cash crop down there. And the tea, it's a tea leaf, right? Yeah, yeah, basically, right? And the people who are indigenous to the region consider Urba, 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 industrialize parts of the capital, right? A sense on 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've 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 flee to Brazil. And actually the Portuguese empire is governed from Brazil for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're like, okay, we 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 so 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 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 Paraguayan independence from these, these breakaways, right? And he wants Paraguay to stay loyal to Spain, obviously. Yeah. 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. 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 Paraguayan 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 know. That's not what I signed up for. So Paraguayan militia commanders might have taken 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 overthrow, and that's how Paraguay becomes independent and all, but name. Now, I say all but name because at this point, no other countries have recognized Paraguay as 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 decided to lock down the Rio Paránea, which is a river that like, it's the big, if your Paraguay is 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 their 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 a Suncion 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 though, the junta that's governing the region. And that's what that's just the term they literally call this temporary governing body. Yeah, right. Try to establish a Republican. Right, right. Try to establish a republic. And because most Paraguayans 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-Defrancia, who historian James Sager describes as the ableist 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 of 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 he's read the most books. And they're like, this guy seems fine. This guy seems like he knows what he's doing. Yeah. That is in the Spanish bit of the Argentine. 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, 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 and 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 it was father, nor to any of his unknown number of illegitimate children. Okay. He's making a case for appearing on this funcast right now. 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 one. Sure. Yeah. And he is my head cannon that it's named after this brutal blood-soaked dictator. We can make that happen. His 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 and law. Because in those days, Spanish law has 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. But lie, he was a general practitioner who just kind of made that claim later. Oh, yeah. Yeah. As a mature adult, Dr. Francia became a prominent member of the elite in a sense, 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. And 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. That's the way it could just be. That's cool. No, they're having 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 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? 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, but 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 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 destroying. In 1810, he helped argue against accepting Argentina's claims on Paraguay. And after Paraguay's victory over Argentina, he became a Paraguay 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. With El Supremo, 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. Others were regularly arrested and expelled. First off, one of the first people, really the first person I've ever heard of whose obsession with social equality is so that there are restrictions on same-race marriages during his reign, right? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I never heard of that. Actually. I guess that's like bad, but it is unique. So congratulations. Yes. Different. No, this just must never get out on x.com. Yeah. I'm sure they'll be able to get to the shit they say about the DSA. Yeah. So during Dr. Francia's reign, because again, this guy is like an arch-isolationist. It's basically impossible for Paraguayans to leave the country, which is 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 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? um, Francia and Nye. The old Spanish colonial elite, although this was mostly non-violent. 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. Fransius, 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, like I got no opinions at all. Dr. Nuh. I guess I want to die. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Midway. And I said like Brazil also is kind of keeping part of Paraguay, you know, lockdown effectively. Brazil doesn't declare its independence until partway through Dr. Fransius 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. Yeah. And he becomes Emperor Pedro the first of Brazil. Yeah. Yeah. Independence, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Like baby's fifth independence. Right. Yeah. And 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 huge. Like, 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 popular, 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. Yeah. That makes sense. That helps me understand. Thank you. Yeah. They fight a brutal war over the territory that's going to become Uruguay, which immediately collapses into a series of simple wars after its independence that are also proxy wars between Brazilian and Argentina. That's like their, it's almost like they're Afghanistan, they're Vietnam for a while. Like Brazil and Argentina cannot stop fucking around in Uruguay. Um, Dr. Fancy people into Uruguay to come out and meet Jenna. Yeah. Many such cases. This is really bad for Uruguay's population a lot of guys die in there. Um, Dr. Fancy keeps Paraguay the fuck out of all of this and under him the country gains again. It's 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 Fancy regime. He had been born in the latter days of the Spanish Empire and he'd grown up learning how to survive and 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. Fancy had died in 1840 and Lopez, because he's one of the richest guys left alive, is 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. Um, Lopez returns to a Sonsillon as soon as the dictator's dead and in February of 1821, there's a kind of coup and an officer named Mariano Alonzo 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 is, 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 that. He has a, 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, he's not insecure as a dictator, which is interesting. Like he's, like a healthy ego and not like the toxic way necessarily. Yeah, he's, he's, he's convinced he earned it, I guess, like he doesn't, doesn't feel threatened by the others. Well, 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 gonna 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, he's, 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 Paraguayans, he just never leaves the capital and he has zero interest in war or military image. 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 to do. Yeah. Yeah. It could be worse. Yeah. And he does reform the military for defensive purposes, but he mostly works on fixing the damage. Francy has said 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, there's the good kind of indigenous people, basically as Paraguayans on the Capitol, see it? And then there's the bad kind who live out near the Chaco, 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. No one to murder. Yeah. He doesn't hear it. Dr. Francy is well developed secret police force. And Francy has had formed his head, had based a secret police force on the inquisition. And so perfect. He's talking about great most 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. That's a lot of lessons. And he, 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 careful 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, 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. Cool. And they support creating a new feudal monarchy that's based entirely on blood and inheritance, you know? We are run by a cousin that always works in the past. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and health 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. Their story is about what it takes to make it out alive, listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're bookshelf and you're for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Pro's 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. 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I actually, can you help me, can you help me shape this? Yeah. How about we flip it on his head? No. How about we flip this around? Okay. What is the surprise? - That is one, man. Actually, you think it's the straight man, it's actually the one who's acting weird. - Adam Scott, love. - This entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. - I would never let go of that. - I have, I would never set expectations for something like that. - It sounds like if the universe allows for something like that to happen. - I am open to it. - I'm always going to accept, you know. - Danny McBride, fine. - Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking on the hallway to be honest with you. - I was like, I was like, exactly. - I was like, exactly. - Nope, it's fragile masculinity. - Ben stiller, no. - I think there's a lot of times out of context, people don't get it, or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? Like, girl, go watch the show. - It's so stupid. - Grab everyone's self-dumb experience for you. - And fake. - Right, fake and also not interested, or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. - And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. - Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose Option B. I'm Julie Bignero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. - Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smile good, that's not a lot of people smile around here. - It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - 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. - Perfect, that seems like the best way to choose. I don't think we've ever done a better one. - So the dictator Carlos Lopez's son, Francisco Solano Lopez Carrillo, was born on July 24th, 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 ice, 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, 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 Solano Lopez, and the ruination of Paraguay. Sagger, right? He expected that all persons except his father treat him with deference, preferably with civility. Employees were reverent to all the Lopez boys. The young men led scandalous and disillute lives without adverse consequences, except for Venoncio, 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 our hereditary monarchy, basically. That it's set up for being not a great person. It's surrounded by people who are different 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 app. He grows up surviving in like first the Spanish 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. Yeah, he's not great. This is full on like 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 and Heritz 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. He used to hear like a dumb, dumb, dumb, there. He's going to get a lot of people killed. Yeah, that is like, when you're writing a relatively academic tone history, that is that is a burn. And it's about, it's unkind as you can be to someone. That's about as mean as an academic is allowed to go. 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 in his closer relatives, profitable farms and like real estate packages as well as large numbers of Afro-Paraguayan 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 like skimming like 25% off the top of the whole country. For the first time. Yeah, every dollar you spend off of it goes to them straight away in various things. Right. Americans are increasingly familiar with this kind of government. That's going to say we can let a lot from this, couldn't we? Yeah, some people in the country cut. While Francisco learns the ropes, his father expands the surveillance system that Dr. Francie has 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 paradoxical conclusions. 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 forward 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 is in this point in time. So, but 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 of a Lopez family member shows up, everyone else knows that you can't bid anymore. (laughing) What a fucking life, yeah. - Great situation to be in if you're a Lopez. - We got one dollar and everyone's just like, yep. - Yeah, fantastic. - Yeah, it sounds like a fair price boss. - Yeah, please don't have me. - It was just breaking me, yeah. - So the looting of the economy was married to a vigorous expansion of the 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. For his part, I'm sure the army loved that. 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. When 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 fit. 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 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 Paraguay and Independence, he gives his son 27-year-old Francisco Lopez the job of handling the negotiations. Now, 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 trees 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 bumping around it because he's basically the Prince of Paraguay. But, you know, here's a, yeah, he's taking his gap here. He's taking his gap a couple of years in Europe to 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 historyisnow.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 III, the French are also doing Napoleon cosplay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's kind of doing like a cargo cult version of Napoleon. It's a cosplay for 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. It's like it's a outfit. It's just really going to sell them. Everyone's got one of these in Napoleon hats. It's also really funny. If you go back to episodes on Napoleon III, he was not great. He has some success for a while, but it's really funny. Almost a lot of other people like realized, oh, this is a fucking idiot at the time. But all of his stick. Napoleon III's bullshit works perfectly on Francisco Lopez. Yes. He falls for this dude. He could not be more in love. And it's even funnier. Napoleon III does not care for him at all. Not interested in this little too bit fucking dictator. Yeah, that's even better. Yeah. He's just like an Napoleon superfan at this point. Yeah. Following him around us for his autograph. We just did our episodes on like Alex Carp and talked about his, his like one of the mentor Yurg and Habermost was just not that interested in working with Alex Carp when he was a young man. And Lopez, Francisco Lopez has kind of the same relationship with Napoleon that they're 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. He's like, this is like a Taylor switch right back to her fans. He's really sad. Yeah, it's got like a little fill in the blankway, but it's name in there. Yeah, the name of potentate here. He's also going to 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 about your technical experts while he's over in Europe to help with everything. And he's going to move to Paraguay because that's kind of how it should works at the time. And in part, he wants to build railways, which is a good idea. And he is, he does like build railways across Paraguay. Great idea. Trains really work. And it's good to bring in Europeans to help you with their trains in this period of time. He also has guys bringing in an old telegraph network again, a good idea. And he brings, 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 to do in those shops. Right. 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 as 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, his dream, right? Is this sort of modern militarized Paraguay in 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 Paraguay and 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 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 do 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 French men. And Francisco tries to like when he's were talking to the Prussians to like get some of theirs. Dude, 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 Urba to Prussia to try to get German soldiers addicted to this stuff. It's like they're caffeine. So they want their hook. They'll need to keep coming back to Paraguay. This British soldier's really showed him the ropes, didn't they? Yeah. It's really funny. You should have it. You should have just tried to fucking import some cocaine, man. That would have gone off right there in Prussia. Go hard if you're going to, if you're going to go for it, maybe your first earbuds on him. I don't think the Urba is going to really do it. I mean, nothing against the Urba, but it's just not this. It's not that. I got some friends who really hit the Yerba, the canned Yerba. Pretty hard. I like the canned Yerba every once in a while. It's yeah, it's not bad. I like it when you get it in the in the traditional fashion from the gold. I just like his, his, his, his brilliant scheme is to like get the Prussian army addicted to Yerba. It's really funny. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of all the things that you can grow in that, in South America, right? He's gone with tea. He's gone with tea. He tries to bribe like a British industrial leader by giving him a Tiger Cup. It's just really cool. I mean, it's probably pretty bad for the Tiger, but it's funny. Yeah, it's going to try, also the Tiger is just going to grow up and fuck up that guy's house. Yeah, I mean, like, it's kind of that time bomb situation. It's so bad. Congratulations. I've given you a problem for the future. Yeah, it'd be very funny if that was his goal. Like, look at this cute cat. Yeah. Now, his prized moment is in his career was meeting former subject of the show in Bruno Poli in the third. As I said, who he saw as a brilliant man and military leader for reasons that are cannot be explained. The two have a very formal meeting, but again, he's going to claim they're like 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 rootness and poor personal hygiene. As his biographer notes in Ruination of Paraguay, quote, non-Paraguayans noted 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 this guy's reading a monster of like the passive aggression, isn't he? Like in his little burns every every sentence we get. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know who else uses money to appear attractive to certain women? The sponsors of our podcast. I'm going to go to direction. Okay. I thought you're going to say that 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. She's teaching me. No. That's fucked up. That's really weird. It's wild out there. Guys, that's incredibly gross. If you're doing that and if you're doing that, you're listening to a show. I want to know why you get inside your head. Because my credit store is just fine. I don't need your help. Honestly, go back to the fish. You know what? Go back to the fish. Yeah, it'd be great. Sometimes there's the fish credit score combo. And that's like an instant. It really helps. It really helps weed out the weed out the weirdest. That would be an emotional roller coaster. Because a fish person seems happy, secure. Hopefully, they put the fish back. What we're hearing is that the fish pictures would work on you. The fish, yeah, if you're coming after me, you show me a fish. Just get a fish picture and all kinds of things. Back and forth. Not like a money fish or something hideous, you know, but like a nice-looking fish. That'd be all about it. No, I'm fucking care about 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, you and I see a good fish. I know what you're talking about. I said, so if you're a good video, just like our sponsors. I don't need your fish picks or your fish videos. I have James Tyler. We're going to the ads. This is dumb. I'm like a fucking sea lion. You know, this is the only thing I want in life is his fish. I don't care about your credit score. I survived. And I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. 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 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. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your four-year page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Pro's 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. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, and 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's Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I choose option B. I'm Julie Piñero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people, and they were like, "You smiled at us, not a lot of people smile around here." It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is, and not the lies you're sold about it. So whether you're a solo travel veteran, or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Ace Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week we talk to someone in show business, aka The Biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. Can you help me shape this? What is the surprise one, man? Actually, you think as the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott. This entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never let go of that. I would never set expectations for something like that. It seems like if the universe allows for something like that to happen, I am open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I was like, is that what we need? No, it's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. I think there's a lot of times out of context, people don't get it, or even know what a circle is. Like you're like, oh, it's so stupid. Everyone's so dynamic for you. And fake. Right, fake. And also not interested. Or just like, oh, I've got my life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show. And he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Ham book on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. 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 gonna say that direction. Yeah. I'm glad it's older than she said. Yes, of course. Yes. I was worried. I'm not gonna 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 a shady ass background. She was at one point married to a French surgeon in the army. And the two, when would she meet Francisco Lopez, she divorces this guy. Although it's possible 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, I appreciate it. Dictators have a great credit score because they own the credit bureau. Come on. Or he had a fish. Or we didn't know about the has been recorded by historians. Hi. 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 uncles, 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 probably a lie. Tons of admirals. Like you can draw some lies. 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 1850 is in Europe. Right? I think I'm like an understandable figure. Yeah. I think that's heroic to be honest. She's grifting of 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. He said, yeah. 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 courtesan, which I think is a much more likely than some of the stories 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 in Spanish to like fluent. So this is a smart. Yeah. Right? She's also like a prestige language situation where like Spanish is the language of like 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 get some Guarani to 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 love 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. So he's going to show you a picture of her from 1864. So you're seeing this. 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 I'm not seeing any fish. The next show, so he'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. He's got a full face. A full face. A full neck beard. A full face. A full neck beard. A full face. A full neck beard. A full neck beard. A full neck beard. A full neck beard. Because that beard is right on the neck. A full neck beard. A full neck beard. So a lot of choices at once, and then the triangle stash. And she looks cool and shit. Yeah. What she got in her hand. She looks cool and shit. And she looks like. He looks like. He looks like him. He looks like him. What's his name? Gallifranac is his character from the hangover. Is that Gallifranac? Yeah. Is that Gallifranac? Yeah. If you imagine that character 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. And he invented all those medals for himself. And she kind of looks like a Stevie Nicks fairy. She looks a little like Stevie Nicks. Yeah. And he looks like if Lindsay Buckingham did Napoleon cosplay and was worse looking. Yeah. And it's like she's doing like the rock on sign with the hand. It does a little bit. She's pretty cool. She's certified. She's got. Yeah. She's got one of those like 19. She's a choker necklaces. The pretty cool choker. And you said she's a con woman. Does she con this man? She cons kind of the country of Paraguay. You know what? And she's Irish. I mean, it's a harmless con. Okay. Yeah. She probably was Irish. I don't think we really know for sure. Let's go. Um, so the two are never married. They do conceive. but try at least one child together. And based on the math, this probably occurs during the latter stages 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, ah, man, so much going on, why don't you hang out with this other guy?" (laughing) 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, "Lopus opposed granting anyone such a right, since he was not a supporter of legal rights anyway." (laughing) He's just not a legal shite. (laughing) This is a great biography. It's really fun, guys, a really good biography. - Yeah, it'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. - Sacred has my favorite kind of biography words. Incredibly, he read every word this man ever wrote to anyone that we still have access to, basically. And he hates him. (laughing) - He hates him so much. - The hate field biography is fascinating. - 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, 'cause you hate them so fucking much. - As a hater, I gotta take my hat off if I was wearing one to sacred, 'cause 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 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. For the website history is now, the experience would prove invaluable to him. And it gave him knowledge on the handling of large armies, especially siege craft. The Crimean War was defined by the siege of Sevastopol, which saw the allies of Britain, France, the Ottomans, and Sardinia, besieged 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 this gives him this understanding. He's gonna 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 get lucky a couple of times. And 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, Alisa 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, 'cause they're gonna be, he's gonna have his brother sit to a camp. Right? Some people will say this is where, like, they're different agreements started. But as a partial stop to his brother in public feeling, Lopez makes his mistress travel to Paraguay on a separate ship. For instance, go returns home. Yeah, it's poor Alisa. I think she's pretty nice both though. And maybe she wanted a break from the dude. To me, yeah, maybe that's a maybe more of a win for her than I meant. Wouldn't be shocked if she wanted a break from the dude, yeah. She's like, oh no, oh no, no. Oh, it's a separate ship. You say? What is me? Yeah, I'm gonna just put like 30 hot dudes on this boat with me. That aren't you. Thank you. Okay, I'll see you soon. Bye. And the boat gets lost so I can navigate to the globe. Yeah, Francisco returns home triumphant with an arm full 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 Hege notes that Francisco also returned with quote, several steamships to fill out the Imbreonic Paraguay and fleet along with all the guns ammunition and gold braid that his deep pockets could purchase. Now, yeah, I guess. Tactical, uh, tactical break and the gold braid. Yeah, critical. Can't fight a war as a gold braid. Nope, as much bling as possible. That's what he learned from French. We all remember after the expanded Russian invasion of the Ukraine when Zalinsky was asked, Hey, do you do you need evac by like NATO and said, I don't need a ride. I need more gold braid. As much gold braids as you can get in here. I dropped me a little part of the braid. I've invented several new medals and he just stopped them. Yeah, famously rubbed it when you and I were in Myanmar. They were 3D printing little little gold braids for that. That's right. Yeah, and that's what I wanted. As Napoleon said, an army marches on gold braid. They do call it scrambled egg. I guess. Maybe that's what's that. 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 Paraguay and army. And he is, this is whenever I read this, I can't think he's just playing Warhammer 40,000 with real life dudes, right? And the arms merchants of Europe or his games workshop. And he's buying all these cool new models, right? Like, oh, this is me. This comes cool. I want one of these. We got to take these. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, he said, yeah, many such cases actually in history. This is what happened when you have her right to tree power on all the lot. Oh, it had because this is kind of the Kaiser Wilhelm story. But, well, Kaiser Wilhelm has a lot bigger budget and way smarter guy is building his military. Those are a lot more humans to pour into me. 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. Perhesia'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 greens 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 he's trying to start her love for it. Like maybe he just didn't really hold it back. Is he he's not quite so subtle with his criticism. I'm not going to really really to blame her about this guy. Yeah, you go a little uninvestigated. So to me, on he's part there, maybe, maybe. It's not he's not inventing that. People at the time accuse of this people at the time accused her of this probably not for totally great reasons. So as soon as he's back in a Sonsion, Francisco takes on new powers. His father is old and ailing and happy to delegate to a son who seems to have prove it 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 edits most when he was in charge. It's top population would have been like around 450,000 people. Okay. Yeah, he's really he's behind. Like behind the times on that one burns that many dudes just in France. So the results of trying to apply in the polionic tactics to a country that is smaller than Portland, Oregon are going to be catastrophic. This is not a great thing. Yeah, fucking anybody. Yeah, geez, yeah. That is, yeah, he's 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 giving your pluggables? Yeah, absolutely. So I have a new podcast that you can listen to from the 17th of August on the I help media app or over else you get your podcast. It's called natural causes. It's about going outside. I'm 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. My friends made a theme song in my living room. Yes. And another friend of mine made the art. We're doing this very, we're doing this very DIY, which is a, 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. And real life. Warhammer with hundreds of thousands of human beings, hundreds of thousands. Eventually, it's going to be great. It'll go, it would go about as well as it would have I got to do that. Honestly, hundreds of thousands. It'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 are wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes of behind the bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit remind me on Netflix. You don't miss an episode for clips and our older episode catalog continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com/at behind the bastards. We love about 40% of you statistically speaking. I survived nine months in captivity. 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