The situation in Rio Grande do Sul was chaotic, and the local military commanders were incapable of mounting an effective resistance to the Paraguayan army. Pedro II, aware of the danger, decided to go to the front to shore up operations. As the Emperor's military aide-de-camp, Caxias followed him into the combat zone. The marquis had warned the Progressive cabinet that Brazil was unprepared to intervene in Uruguay and even less prepared to resist a foreign invasion. His warnings were ignored, and he complained, with a bit of irony, to his friend João Maurício Vanderlei, Baron of Cotejipe, a former colleague in the Conciliation cabinet: "I am almost mad with the mistakes that I am seeing being made, but since I am a "red" or traditional "saquarema" I am not listened to, since everything is "progress" in our country."