The Chaco War (, Mombe’uhára Paraguái ha Boliviaygua Jotopa III, Cháko Ñorairõ rehegua . Secretaría Nacional de Cultura de Paraguay) was fought from 1932 to 1935. It was between Bolivia and Paraguay over control of the northern part of the Gran Chaco region (known in Spanish as the Chaco Boreal), which was thought to be rich in petroleum. The war is also referred to as La Guerra de la Sed (Spanish for "The War of Thirst"), since it was fought in the semi-arid Chaco. It was the first that took place in South America in which modern weapons (such as machine guns, armoured fighting vehicles and airplanes) were used, and also the bloodiest South America war of the 20th century — around 2% of the Bolivian population and 3% of Paraguayans were killed during the conflict.
During the war, both landlocked countries faced difficulties moving arms and supplies through neighbouring countries. Despite its income from mining and a larger and better-equipped army, problems with international trade and poor internal communications ultimately turned the tide against Bolivia. The war concluded at the Chaco Peace Conference in Buenos Aires in July 1938, at which both countries signed a peace treaty awarding three-quarters of the Gran Chaco to Paraguay.
Origins
The origins of the war are attributed to a long-standing territorial dispute and to the discovery of oil deposits on the eastern Andes range. After losing territory to neighboring countries in the late 19th century, both Bolivia and Paraguay had become landlocked countries. The Chaco was sparsely populated, but control of the Paraguay River running through it would provide access to the Atlantic Ocean. Paraguay had lost almost half of its claimed territory to Brazil and Argentina as a consequence of the War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870), and its economic viability depended on retaining control of the Paraguay River.The Chaco War In 1879, Bolivia lost its Pacific coast to Chile during the War of the Pacific.Guerra entre Bolivia y Paraguay: 1928–1935 by Ana Maria Musico Aschiero The 1929 Treaty of Lima ended the hopes of the Bolivian government of recovering a land corridor to the Pacific Ocean, so Bolivia viewed access to the Atlantic Ocean via the Paraguay River as imperative to international trade and further economic development.Hunefeldt, Christine, A Brief History of Peru, New York: Facts on File, Inc., (2004) p. 149 Morales Q., Waltraud, Brief History of Bolivia. New York: Facts on File, Inc., (2003) p. 83
In international arbitration, Bolivia argued that the region had been part of the original Spanish colonial province of Moxos and Chiquitos to which Bolivia was heir. Meanwhile, Paraguay based its case on the occupation of the land. Indeed, both Paraguayan and Argentine ranchers were already breeding cattle and exploiting the quebracho forests in the area,Farcau, Bruce W. (1996). The Chaco War: Bolivia and Paraguay, 1932–1935. Greenwood Publishing Group, pp. 7–8. and the small population of nomadic indigenous Guaraní-speaking people was related to Paraguay's own Guaraní heritage. As of 1919, Argentine banks owned of land in the eastern Chaco, and the Casado family, a powerful part of the Argentine oligarchy, held 141,000.Farcau, p. 11 The presence of Mennonite colonies in the Chaco, who settled there in the 1920s under the auspices of the Paraguayan government, was another factor in favour of Paraguay's claim.
The impetus for war was exacerbated by a conflict between oil companies jockeying for exploration and drilling rights, with Royal Dutch Shell backing Paraguay and Standard Oil Company supporting Bolivia."Para la mayoría de las voces, el conflicto entre Bolivia y Paraguay (1932–1935) tuvo su origen en el control del supuesto petróleo que pronto iría a fluír desde el desierto chaqueño en beneficio de la nación victoriosa." The discovery of oil in the Andean foothills sparked speculation that the Chaco might prove to be a rich source of petroleum. Standard Oil was already producing oil from wells in the hills of eastern Bolivia, around Villamontes. In addition to the interests of these companies, Argentina's goal of importing petroleum from the Chaco also contributed to the instigation of the war. In opposition to the "dependency theory" of the war's origins, the British historian Matthew Hughes argued against the thesis that Bolivian and Paraguayan governments were the "puppets" of Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell respectively by writing: "In fact, there is little hard evidence available in the company and government archives to support the theory that oil companies had anything to do with causing the war or helping one side or the other during the war". The historian Bret Gustafson, on the other hand, argues that "the blurred lines between the bank and the oil industry show that [Standard Oil] did indeed finance the Bolivian build-up, even if instigating the war was left to Bolivian generals."
Prelude to war
The first confrontation between the two countries dates back to 1885, when Bolivian president Gregorio Pacheco founded Puerto Pacheco, a port on the Upper Paraguay River, asserting that this new settlement was well inside Bolivian territory. In 1888, the Paraguayan government sent the gunboat Pirapó, commanded by Paraguayan War veteran Domingo Antonio Ortiz, which forcibly evicted the Bolivians from the settlement. Two agreements followed, in 1894 and 1907, which neither the Bolivian nor the Paraguayan government approved.Farcau, pp. 8–9 Meanwhile, in 1905, Bolivia — ignoring Paraguayan official protests — founded Ballivián and Guachalla, two new outposts along the Pilcomayo River in the Chaco.La Armada Paraguaya: La Segunda Armada
Bolivian penetration in the region went unopposed until 1927, when the first blood was shed over the Gran Chaco. On 27 February, members of a Paraguayan Army foot patrol were taken prisoner near the Pilcomayo River and held in the Bolivian outpost of Fortín Sorpresa, where the commander of the Paraguayan detachment, Lieutenant Adolfo Rojas Silva, was shot and killed in suspicious circumstances. Fortín (Spanish for "little fort") was the name used for the small pillbox and trench-like garrisons constructed by the military forces in the Chaco. The Bolivian government formally regretted the death of Rojas Silva, but Paraguayan public opinion called it "murder". After subsequent talks in Buenos Aires failed to produce any agreement in January 1928, the dispute grew more violent. On 5 December 1928, a Paraguayan cavalry unit overran Fortín Vanguardia, an advance outpost established by the Bolivian army a few kilometres northwest of Bahía Negra. The Paraguayans captured 21 Bolivian soldiers and burned their huts to the ground.Farcau, pp. 12–13
On 14 December 1928, Bolivia retaliated by capturing Fortín Boquerón (which would later be the site of the first major battle of the campaign), killing 15 Paraguayans. The Bolivians also conducted an air strike on Bahía Negra on 15 December, which caused few casualties and little damage. A return to the status quo ante bellum was eventually agreed on 12 September 1929 in Washington, DC, under pressure from the Pan American League, but an arms race had already begun, and both countries were on a collision course.Farcau, p. 14 The regular border clashes might have led to war in the 1920s if either side had been capable of waging war. However, neither Paraguay nor Bolivia had an arms industry, and both countries had to import vast quantities of arms from Europe and the United States to arm themselves for the coming conflict. It was this lack of sufficient arms that delayed the outbreak of the war until 1932.
Another contributing factor was the signature of the Chile–Peru Treaty of Lima in 1929, which ruled out a sovereign Bolivian access to the Pacific Ocean. The option to give Bolivia sea access through the territories disputed between Chile and Peru had been promoted by the United States which had been invited to the negotiations by Peru. Having the option to recover an access to the coast disappear was seen as a large setback in Bolivia and arguably it served to harden the Bolivian stance on the Chaco issue.
Armies
Bolivian infantry forces were armed with the latest in foreign weapons, including DWM Maxim M1904 and M1911 machine guns, Czechoslovak ZB vz. 26 and Vickers-Berthier light machine guns, Mauser-type Czechoslovak Vz. 24 7.65 mm rifles (mosquetones) and Schmeisser MP-28 II 9 mm submachine guns. At the outset, the Paraguayan troops used a motley collection of small arms, including the German Maxim, the British Vickers, the Browning MG38 water-cooled machine guns, and the Danish Madsen light machine gun. The primary service rifle was the M1927 7.65 mm Paraguayan Long Rifle, a Mauser design based on the M1909 Argentine Long Rifle and manufactured by the Oviedo arsenal in Spain.Mowbray, Stuart C. and Puleo, Joe, Bolt Action Military Rifles of the World, Andrew Mowbray Publishers, Inc. 1st Ed. (2009), p. 285: After the war, an enterprising arms dealer purchased the remaining M1927 rifles and re-exported them back to Spain, where they were hastily refurbished and reissued to Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War. The M1927 rifle, which tended to overheat in rapid fire, proved highly unpopular with the Paraguayan soldiers. Some M1927 rifles experienced catastrophic receiver failures, a fault that was later traced to faulty ammunition. After the commencement of hostilities, Paraguay captured sufficient numbers of Bolivian VZ-24 rifles and MP 28 submachine guns (nicknamed piripipi) to equip all of its front-line infantry forces.
Paraguay had a population only a third as large as that of Bolivia (880,000 vs. 2,150,000). However, Paraguay gained the upper hand because of its innovative style of fighting, centered on rapid marches and flanking encirclements, compared to Bolivia's more conventional strategy. In June 1932, the Paraguayan Army totaled about 4,026 men (355 combat officers, 146 surgeons and non-combatant officers, 200 cadets, 690 NCOs and 2,653 soldiers). Both racially and culturally, the Paraguayan Army was practically homogeneous. Almost all of its soldiers were European-Guaraní mestizos. Bolivia's army, however, were mostly descended from the Altiplano's aboriginals of Quechua or Aymará (90% of the infantry troops), while the lower-ranking officers were of Spanish or other European ancestry, and the army commander-in-chief, Hans Kundt, was German. Although the Bolivian army had more manpower, it never mobilized more than 60,000 men, and no more than two-thirds of its army were ever on the Chaco. Paraguay, on the other hand, mobilized its entire army.Scheina, Robert L. (2003). "Latin America's Wars Volume II: The Age of the Professional Soldier, 1900–2001." Washington D.C.: Brasseys. A British diplomat reported in 1932 that the average Bolivian had never been anywhere close to the Chaco and "had not the slightest expectation of visiting it in the course of his life." Most Bolivians had little interest in fighting, let alone dying, for the Chaco. Furthermore, the typical Bolivian soldier was a Quechua or Aymara peasant conscript accustomed to life high in the Andes Mountains and did not fare well in the low-lying, hot, and humid land of the Chaco.