Thus the roadway was
littered with the corpses of these slain women.
All this while Lopez was sufficiently busy in his own way. His dreams of
Empire appear to have died hard, and not until the very end came could
he be brought to believe that his armies could effect no more. He
permitted his own comforts to be very little affected by the dire
hardships which his troops--and, indeed, the entire nation--were
undergoing. Although he refrained as much as possible from entering into
the neighbourhood of the battles themselves, he took an important share
in the direction of the campaign, and it was undoubtedly owing largely
to his crass ineptitude in all strategical matters that many of the
disasters came about. Although some of his moves were of the nature to
render surrender or death inevitable to the actual combatants engaged in
the grim struggle, a capitulation on the part of one of his officers
was, in the eyes of Lopez, an unpardonable crime, and not only was the
offending officer himself wont to be executed on account of the deed,
but on several occasions his family was made to share his fate.
Seeing that the male members and connections of his own family had
suffered tortures and execution at his hands, and that even his sisters
had been flogged by his orders, it was not to be expected that the
average Paraguayan would meet with mercy from Lopez.
Pages:
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363