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

[upbeat electronic music] Coolzone Media.

Welcome back once again to Behind the Bastards, a podcast where we tell you everything you don't know about the worst people in all of history.

And this week, we're telling the story of Francisco Solano López, the dictator of Paraguay, and probably the worst military leader in all of history.

The only person I've ever read of who was so bad at being a general that he got his entire country genocided.

[laughs] Like, it's-

[laughs]

I, I, I shouldn't be laughing.

It's a really terrible story.

Yeah.

People suffer horribly, but the level of incompetence is just, like...

It's honestly, like, almost awe-inspiring.

Like, I've never read about anyone doing this badly at war, and that includes Hitler.

Yeah.

Anyway, James Stout, welcome back to the show.

Th- th- thank you, Robert.

Sorry to say Hitler right before introducing you.

I'm excited to see, uh, to hear about so many people dying.

Yeah.

Always what I expect when I come on here, but never cease.

Always a good time.

Always a good time.

Yeah.

Human death and misery.

It's-

That's, that's the James Stout...

I don't know.

Well-

James-

That's what I give them

... you have a podcast.

[laughs] I do, yeah.

I'm sorry.

I have, I have... [laughs] Thanks, Robert.

I have covered human death and misery for many years.

Uh, but when I'm not, uh, unfortunately covering horrible things, I like to go outside, touch a bit of grass.

Mm.

And my new podcast is called Natural Causes, and it's about going outside and the politics behind going outside.

Excellent.

Uh, yeah.

Gonna, gonna get to the bottom of Mike Lee and why is he like this?

Why is Mike Lee like this? W- what does everyone get wrong about fire suppression?

Yeah.

All the important stories.

Yeah, about-

Who's, who's evicting the buffalo from public lands.

Who's evicting the buffalo, right? And in-

Mm-hmm

... and in their defense, buffalo haven't paid rent in a long time.

Th- it's true-

A long time

... that they predate the concept of rent, yeah.

Yeah, they don't understand money also.

Should we be calling them buffalo? So I'm sure somebody, uh, somebody has strong opinions, and they're already logging on to Reddit to tell me that they're called bison.

I don't know.

All I know is that there's cows and bigger cows and smaller cows, and all animals are one of those three things, including sharks.

Mm-hmm.

Anyway, let's continue talking about Francisco Solano López.