ped death.

Over his people, Lopez wielded a marvelous power, compounded of
persuasive eloquence and brute force. If the Paraguayans had obeyed
their earlier masters blindly, they were dumb before this new despot
and deaf to other than his word of command. To them he was the "Great
Father," who talked to them in their own tongue of Guarani, who was
the personification of the nation, the greatest ruler in the world, the
invincible champion who inspired them with a loathing and contempt for
their enemies. Such were the traits of a man and such the traits of a
people who waged for six years a warfare among the most extraordinary in
human annals.

What prompted Lopez to embark on his career of international madness and
prosecute it with the rage of a demon is not entirely clear. A vision
of himself as the Napoleon of southern South America, who might cause
Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to cringe before his footstool, while he
disposed at will of their territory and fortunes, doubtless stirred his
imagination. So, too, the thought of his country, wedged in between two
huge neighbors and threatened with suffocation between their overlapping
folds, may well have suggested the wisdom of conquering overland a
highway to the sea. At all events, he assembled an army of upwards of
ninety thousand men, the greatest military array that Hispanic America
had ever seen. Though admirably drilled and disciplined, they were
poorly armed, mostly with flintlock muskets, and they were also
deficient in artillery except that of antiquated pattern. With this
mighty force at his back, yet knowing that the neighboring countries
could eventually call into the field armies much larger in size equipped
with repeating rifles and supplied with modern artillery, the "Jupiter
of Paraguay" nevertheless made ready to launch his thunderbolt.

The primary object at which he aimed was Uruguay. In this little state
the Colorados, upheld openly or secretly by Brazil and Argentina, were
conducting a "crusade of liberty" against the Blanco government at
Montevideo, which was favored by Paraguay. Neither of the two great
powers wished to see an alliance formed between Uruguay and Paraguay,
lest when united in this manner the smaller nations might become too
strong to tolerate further intervention in their affairs. For her part,
Brazil had motives for resentment arising out of boundary disputes with
Paraguay and Uruguay, as well as out of the inevitable injury