The Chaco War 1932-1935: Fighting in the Green Hell

By Antonio Luis Sapienza and José Luis Martínez Peláez

The Chaco War was the first modern conflict in South America. Over time, it became the topic of many volumes published in both Bolivia and Paraguay – first by veterans, such as the commanders-in-chief, and the commanders of army corps’, regiments or battalions, and by other ranks, in the form of personal memoirs or wider histories, and using a wide variety of sources. Subsequently, the conflict attracted attention of many foreign writers, foremost from the United States of America and Europe, who researched it with great interest. Hundreds of related articles have also been published.

Nevertheless, The Chaco War, 1932-1935 is the first ever concise history of this conflict, providing the reader with the full background to this conflict, the military build-up of the Bolivian and Paraguayan armed forces, a blow-by-blow account of Bolivian penetration of this territory since the early 20th Century, precise details on troops mobilized for the war by both sides, all of the battles fought between the belligerents, and their casualties.

Two very different military concepts faced each other: the German General Hans Kundt, a First World War veteran, hired by the Bolivian Government, was a proponent of the typical Prussian tactics of front attacks regardless of cost, but also of the strategy of taking and controlling as much territory as possible without annihilating the enemy.

The Paraguayan Lieutenant-Colonel José Felix Estigarribia (later promoted to Colonel, and then General), took his specialization courses in Chile and France, and was a proponent of tactics of using trench warfare for defense, and flanking the enemy when in the offensive.

Eventually, Estigarribia’s ideas proved their worth – partially because his forces managed to capture huge stocks of Bolivian arms and ammunition throughout the war.

This is also the first book to provide an exclusive collection of photographs from the archives of the Institute of History and Military Museum of Ministry of National Defence of Paraguay, and several private archives in Paraguay and Bolivia.

Perfectly complementing the earlier volume The Chaco Air War of the Latin America@War series, The Chaco War, 1932-1935 provides an indispensable, single-point-source-of-reference for enthusiasts and professionals alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helion and Company
• Release date: Aug 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781915113412

Antonio Luis Sapienza

Antonio Luis Sapienza Fracchia was born in Asunción, Paraguay on 14th May 1960. He graduated from the Catholic University of Asunción where he got a B.A. in Clinical Psychology. He also took specialized English courses at Tulane University of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA and San Diego State University in California. He is at present an English Teacher and one of the Academic Coordinators at the Centro Cultural Paraguayo-Americano (CCPA), a binational institute in Asunción. Married with two children, he resides in the capital. In his function as an aviation historian, Sapienza became a founding member of the Instituto Paraguayo de Historia Aeronáutica “Silvio Pettirossi”, and wrote more than 500 related articles for specialized press around the world. Sapienza has received five decorations for his academic merits, and published eleven books.

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Published by Helion & Company 2020

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Cover designed by Paul Hewitt, Battlefield Design (www.battlefield-design.co.uk)

Text © Antonio Luis Sapienza and José Luis Martínez Peláez 2020

Illustrations © as individually credited

Colour profiles © David Bocquelet, Anderson Subtil 2020

Maps © Antonio Luis Sapienza, José Luis Martínez Peláez 2020

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The author and publisher apologise for any errors or omissions in this work, and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

ISBN 978-1-913118-73-0

ePub ISBN 978-1-915113-41-2

Mobi ISBN 978-1-915113-41-2

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

1Background – Military Preparations – The War Breaks Out

21932 – First Paraguayan Offensive – The Battle of Boquerón – Bolivian Retreat

3First half of 1933 – The Bolivian counteroffensive.

4Second half of 1933 – Decline of the Bolivian counteroffensive

5The Battle of Alihuatá–Campo Vía

6The Campaign of 1934

7The final stretch – The Campaign of 1935 – The War arrives in Bolivia

Conclusion

Appendices

IParaguayan Commanders

II Paraguayan Army Units

III Paraguayan Army Corps components in 1932

IV Equipment of the Paraguayan Army

VWar Matériel captured by the Paraguayan Army

VI Bolivian Commanders

VII Bolivian Army Units

VIII Regiments of the Bolivian Divisions in 1932

IX Equipment of the Bolivian Army

XWar Matériel captured by the Bolivian Army

Sources

Acknowledgements

About the authors

Plates

FOREWORD

Iam particularly pleased to present this valuable work that synthesises the most important and probably the bloodiest South American war of the 20th century, between two neighbouring countries, Paraguay and Bolivia. The conflict, which was carried out between 1932 and 1935, was a territorial dispute involving about 320,000km² of the region known as the Chaco. Internationally known as the Chaco War, it was also called the War of Thirst as military strategies prioritised the control of the scarce water lagoons for the survival of troops. Three years of confrontation involved the mobilisation of 375,000 men, almost a fifth of whom would lose their lives in combat or due to dehydration and dysentery.

Having exhausted all the diplomatic channels in almost 80 years of negotiations for a border agreement, the two countries, both with modest economies, ended up facing each other on the battlefield. Bolivia was better positioned in terms of reserves with its mining exports, whereas Paraguay’s financial situation was still recovering from the setbacks suffered during its last armed confrontation, the Triple Alliance War (1864–70), against a coalition of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, which had left the country in poverty and with a decimated population.

That did not prevent both governments from getting into debt, leaving their inhabitants in complete austerity whilst buying the most modern equipment and armaments of the time, anticipating the military techniques of the Second World War.

Battles were waged by armies of both sides against an implacable enemy called by many ‘The Green Hell’: an arid terrain, inhospitable and unknown, with dusty and impassable roads, dangerous vegetation, acute shortage of water and impenetrable forests full of insects and venomous serpents. The heat in the region was oppressive; temperatures could reach almost 50° Celsius (122° Fahrenheit) in summer but tumbled as low as -5° Celsius (23° Fahrenheit) in winter.

The Chaco Ground War is written by two esteemed and distinguished friends, passionate about the history of this unique military struggle – José Luis Martinez Peláez and Antonio Luis Sapienza Fracchia, both born in Asunción in Paraguay. They have honoured me with the task of prefacing this book, which not only has an orderly chronology of the development of the conflict, from its antecedents to the cessation of hostilities, but also detailed charts of the units in combat, with their military chiefs, and the armaments and equipments used by both countries. Their writing is based on years of research and collection of documents.

It is extremely difficult to synthesise a war of which numerous volumes have been written in a condensed book. It not only means a great effort of data selection and compilation, but a vast knowledge of the events and a deep admiration of the facts and the men who led this war.

In this excellent work, José and Antonio expertly revive the cruel episodes of this bitter dispute, offering the reader an interesting chronicle of the epic story of the Chaco War.

Arch. Victor Meden

Asunción, November 2019

INTRODUCTION

Since the end of the Chaco War in 1935, a large number of volumes on that conflict have been published in both Bolivia and Paraguay. The first books were written by veterans of the war, by the commanders in chief, the commanders of army corps, regiments or battalions, by officers or non-commissioned officers, in the form of personal memoirs or global stories, using diverse documentary sources. This conflict also attracted foreign writers, mainly from the United States and Europe, who researched with great interest and then published volumes in various languages that were added to the already extensive literature on the Chaco War. Hundreds of articles have also been published in various newspapers, magazines and online web pages.

Why, then, publish another book on a topic that has been written upon such a lot? With my co-author, and at the request of Helion, we saw the need to put together a concise history of this conflict, so that the reader could have a general knowledge of the operations carried out during the Chaco War and the prior preparations of both armies: the slow Bolivian penetration into the territory from the early 20th century to occupy almost half of the Chaco, and the subsequent battles, with the numbers of troops mobilised for each confrontation, their commanders, casualties and captured armaments. All this is here illustrated with a series of photographs, most of them previously unpublished, from the Archives of the Institute of History and the Military Museum of the Ministry of National Defense of Paraguay, several Paraguayan and Bolivian private archives, and the always excellent maps prepared by professional cartographers of the Helion team, not to mention the colourful profiles that illustrate the central section of the book.

In these pages, the reader is provided with a concise history of this war, without having to resort to expensive volumes of 500 or 1,000 pages, with a myriad of details that make one lose the thread of the conflict. This volume is perfectly complemented by a previous work of mine in the ‘Latin America @War’ series, The Chaco Air War, where the air and naval operations of the conflict were described.

We hope that this volume will be appreciated by the faithful followers of this series and will provide them with a general knowledge of what was perhaps the first modern conflict in the Americas, where the latest generation of weapons were used, such as mortars, flamethrowers, tanks and tankettes, light and heavy machineguns, grenades, and cannons and howitzers of various calibres. Two different styles of warfare were practiced on the battlefields of this conflict. While the Bolivian commanders – first General Kundt and then General Peñaranda – initially preferred frontal attacks that cost numerous lives, the Paraguayan commanders, led by General José Félix Estigarribia, favoured flank attacks to carry out manoeuvres of envelopment, so as to liquidate the enemy on the battlefield.

The results were clear, with the Bolivian Army expelled from the Chaco in three years of bloody fighting. Around 100,000 casualties resulted from this conflict, which many authors have defined as a ‘war for oil’, which is, however, a false label. Bolivia fought for a sovereign exit to the sea through the Paraguay River, and needed to occupy the entire Chaco; Paraguay, for its part, fought to maintain the sovereignty of a territory that it always considered its own, since being a Spanish colony.

Antonio Luis Sapienza

Asunción, October 2018

1

BACKGROUND – MILITARY PREPARATIONS – THE WAR BREAKS OUT

Background

The end of the colonial period in the southern region of South America, which began in 1809 with internal revolts in Upper Peru (later Bolivia), led to a situation that