Файл:López the photographer.jpg

English: The Marquess of Caxias, the Brazilian general, satirised for his inactivity, while Francisco Solano López the Paraguayan leader amuses himself by photographing the Brazilian camp.

Caxias was being criticised in the Brazilian press for his slowness in prosecuting the Paraguayan war. In fact, after the disaster of Curupayty and the ensuing epidemic of cholera the allied forces were in need of a thorough reorganisation.

The caption translates as "As the General, who was a cadet at the age 5, keeps the brave Brazilian army in a state of rotten immobility, the wily little Paraguayan general amuses himself by taking photographic shots of their camp". Powerful families, to get quicker promotion for their relatives, got them into the military at absurdly low ages; the cartoonist is having a dig at Caxias' privileged aristocratic status..