Saturday, August 16, 2008

I'll take "Holidays With A Macabre History" for $500, Alex...

It's Children's Day in Paraguay!
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3 comments:

Borepatch said...

But there were some great quotes from this war.

When the Brazilian general besieging the "Sevastopol of the South" (the fortress of Humaita) offered the Paraguayan commander a huge bribe to surrender it, he supposedly replied "General, I don't have that kind of money, but if you surrender your squadron, I'll give you the Imperial Crown of Brazil."

The best quote of all, though, is Lopez' last recorded words: Muerto con mi patria! Interesting use of "con" (with) there. I think Hitler might have said something similar in the bunker.

Interesting writeup about this in David Landes' "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" if you're a little into economics and history.

http://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Nations-Some-Rich/dp/0393318885

10:28 AM, August 16, 2008
Don M said...

At least the occupation forces did their duty. The poputlation of Paraguay nearly doubled in the time of occupation.

12:01 PM, August 16, 2008
Anonymous said...

They actually did chop off his hatrack for display, a classic example of losing ones's head over a piece of tail.
His mistress and more or less co-ruler, Irish courtesan Eliza Lynch,convinced Solano-Lopez he could overrun most of the neighbors with a combination of ferocious Indians and lots of Remington Rolling Block rifles, which almost worked.
They kicked some serious butt until the awkward day their army found itself on both sides of a large river, with the entire Brazilian navy in between. Things went downhill after that.
Supposedly, before skipping off to France, Eliza buried most of the enormous stash of jewels she'd confiscated from the ladies of the country.
She tried to get back in during the 1870's, but for some reason she wasn't welcome. Go figure. Anybody got a mine detector they don't need?

1:07 AM, August 17, 2008

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