At this Battle of Tuyuti the Paraguayans lost no fewer than 8,000 men, and the casualties of the allies amounted to an equal number.  Another important action was fought at Curupaiti two months later, when the progress of the allies was abruptly checked, and they were compelled to retire to some distance with a loss of 9,000 men.  This was only one of a fair number of Paraguayan victories, for the defenders, although in the main they preserved an attitude of strenuous resistance, were occasionally enabled to exchange this for active aggression.

The history of this war, which lasted for four years, is one of the most remarkable in the whole category of struggles of the kind.  Undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary features to be met with is the tremendous courage and grim determination with which the Paraguayans opposed the forces of the allies.  Every yard of the country was contested with a fierceness which left the entire countryside covered with dead and wounded.  When, moreover, the modern arms in the possession of which the Paraguayan armies had commenced the war had become lost and depleted in numbers, their place was taken by improvised weapons of all kinds, and it was frequently with the crudest firearms and lances that these devoted armies continued to fight.

The encouragement these troops received from their leaders—­or, rather, from Lopez—­was in one sense of a negative order.  Rewards for valour were unknown, but punishments for defaults, on the other hand, whether real or imaginary, were abundant and terribly severe.  Men were shot for having in the course of private conversation uttered words which the suspicious mind of Lopez classed as discouraging.  Thus a trooper was on one occasion executed for having ventured the remark that, although the Paraguayans rejoiced over the numbers of their enemies who were slain, they invariably forgot to count their own dead.  A second soldier met with a similar fate for having, on his return from a reconnaissance, stated that the enemy lay in great strength to the front.  Lopez conceived that a report such as this could serve no good end, and ordered its maker to be executed forthwith.

It is curious to remark that even with the astonishing proofs of their bravery and devotion which the army had shown, Lopez could never bring himself to repose any real confidence in his troops.  The tasks which were set them were frequently superhuman.  Indeed, as a rule they received the treatment of beasts rather than of men, and in order to insure the winning of his battles Lopez encouraged his officers to treat their men in a fiendish manner.  Thus, when a body of men had been placed face to face with an infinitely superior force of the enemy, and were being mowed down in hundreds by deadly volleys at close range, a line of Paraguayans were frequently stationed at the rear of their own fighting forces, with the strictest orders to pour a volley into their comrades should they show any signs of retreat.