THE CHACO WAR - 1928-1935.pdf - Latin American Air Wars i inne - Maral

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE CHACO WAR - 1928-1935

DOWNLOAD TEXT FOR ‘LATIN AMERICAN AIR WARS’ BY DAN HAGEDORN

With Special Thanks to Cnl. DAEN Victor Maldonado Guzman, FAB, T.S.Aé. Ramiro

Molina Alanes, IBHA, and Antonio Luis Sapienza

If this writer may be so bold, reader’s interested in a full, one-volume treatment of the

aviation involvement in this, the greatest of Latin American wars between states of the

region, are recommended to locate a copy of Aircraft of the Chaco War prepared for

Schiffer Publishing Company, Limited of Atglen, Pennsylvania by this writer and fellow

aviation historian Antonio L. Sapienza in 1997. 1

As is always the case, however, since the publication of the above work, much

additional information and corrections to previous assumptions have come to light. That,

plus some additional aspects of the aerial side of that savage conflict are offered here

for further consideration.

What came to be known as the Chaco War, between neighboring Bolivia and Paraguay,

was the first serious conflict between states in Latin America in the 20 th century. For

Bolivia, the war was basically prompted by her desire to have an unfettered outlet to the

sea. Bolivia had lost its coastal province of Antofagasta on the Pacific to Chilean forces

in 1879, and had finally given up its claim to the province in 1904. In 1929, Bolivia’s hope

of regaining a port on the Pacific were dashed again when Peru and Chile agreed to

divide the provinces of Tacna and Arica. Although Bolivian exports and imports (including

much of the war materiel she ultimately acquired) could pass freely through the Chilean

port of Arica, Bolivia’s leadership and ruling classes regarded the nation shut in, without

full control of a route to and a port on the ocean. Frustrated on the Pacific, they looked

1 ISBN 0-7643-0146-2

from their lofty perch eastward, over the nearly uninhabited plain known as the Chaco, to

the Rio Paraguay. There, across the river directly from Asunción, the Paraguayan capital,

they fixed their sights.

Paraguay, on the other hand, regarded the Bolivian advances in their direction as a

threat to the very existence of their nation, a factor that the reader should bear in mind in

assessing the events of the time. While the Chaco itself was not known to hold any

important resources, oil fields had been located in Bolivian territory, close to the western

extremity of the Chaco, where the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey had been

producing small amounts of crude near Villa Montes since the early 1920s.

Although the war itself is often described as only having been fully engaged between

1933 and 1935, the critical development of the coming fight actually started with a frontier

incident on December 5, 1928, when Paraguayan troops attacked and, apparently in

contravention of standing orders, destroyed the Bolivian Fortín Vanguardia and Golpón

at the northern end of a series of small forts that Bolivia had been constructing for some

time across the breadth of the Chaco.

Bolivia replied by mobilizing its own army and by taking the Paraguayan Fortín

Boquerón and Mariscal Lopez near the extreme opposite end of the same line of forts. In

the course of this action, Bolivian Grupo de Combate aircraft delivered the first foreign

aerial attack experienced by a South American town, although as it happened, none of

the bombs actually exploded. This December 1928 attack, ostensibly against the

Paraguayan Army and Naval installation at Bahía Negra, very nearly resulted in full-scale

warfare between the two nations - a point not actually reached for four more years.

Flown by a mix of Breguet Bre 19s and Fokker CVb 2 biplane, single-engine bombers, one

of the latter, according to the U.S. Attaché in Buenos Aires, crewed by Tte’s. Lozada

2 Although the C Vbs had been delivered to Bolivia in January 1925, they apparently had not all been

erected by early 1927. Incredibly, there was a very serious competition between the French crews who were

demonstrating and training crews on the newer Breguet 19s and the Fokker representative, Emil Meinecke.

The delay in not only erecting the Fokkers - but training crews (who had been rejected by the Breguet

and Manchego, was allegedly brought down by ground fire, and the crew captured.

Unfortunately, neither Bolivian nor Paraguayan sources support this interesting report

which, if true, represented the first foreign aircraft downed by anti-aircraft fire in South

America. What is more, however, is that neither of the named airmen show up in any

published Bolivian aviation histories. Fellow aero-historian Antonio Sapienza believes that

this incident was somehow confused with the capture of an Argentine civilian

Aéropostale Latécoère Laté 26 flown by French pilot Jean Mermoz which, at the time,

was thought by Paraguay to have been operating for Bolivia.

Throughout the lengthy period of negotiations and probing that ensued, the relative

positions of the two opposing nations must be viewed as differing in two very important

ways. First and foremost, Bolivia had a definite goal for her troops: the west bank of the

Rio Paraguay. Her ambitions in this regard were backed mainly by juridical interpretations

of old colonial documents. The area usually called the Gran Chaco belonged, originally, to

the same Spanish colonial district (called an audiencia ) as Bolivia. Thus, in Bolivian eyes,

the land was viewed as legally subject to the Spanish colonial administration’s successor

government in La Paz. In truth, however, the mountain peoples had little genuine

connection with the sweltering lowlands. Paraguay, for her part, was determined that

formal boundaries be reset at their originally designated locations in the Chaco.

Throughout this period, Bolivia’s Chief of Staff, the German General Hans Kundt,

continuously proposed aggressive action against Paraguay, including the occupation of

Chaco fortíns on the Paraguayan frontier, and the aerial bombardment of Asunción itself.

His simplistic logic was that it was, in the end, cheaper to make war on Paraguay than

continue an extended armed peace.

For readers from vastly different geographical areas of the earth, it is asking much to

comprehend the arena in which this contest occurred. It is difficult to imagine a more

inhospitable land area. Depending on what measurement you prefer, the Gran Chaco

instructors!) ironically resulted in more of the Dutch aircraft surviving well into the first years of the

must be described as the most hostile of a largely uninhabited, 250,000 square mile

region. It is extremely arid, nearly semi-desert, where some of the highest temperatures

recorded in all of South America are encountered. In the west, nearer to the Bolivian

mountains, the land is at first fairly gentle - deceptively so to the highland Bolivian troops

who first arrived there. Even at that, it is almost perfectly flat, sparsely vegetated, and

virtually waterless - factors that would haunt thousands of men in the years to come.

Farther east, just as you begin to believe that it can’t possibly grow any worse, it does. It

gradually changes to a thick, brittle, almost impassable thorn bush jungle punctuated

occasionally by extremely dense stands of quebracho trees and a few blessed, grassy

clearings. A complete inventory of all of the biting, stinging insects and tropical diseases

that might be encountered there has never been completed.

Having said all this, however, it is an immutable law of human history that, whatever the

political motivations for warfare between tribes or states, the issue almost always turned

upon the relative preparedness of the troops on the ground, their motivation, and their

leadership. With regard to the Chaco War, relatively little has been written on this subject

but, for the purposes of this study, in which airmen of both sides attempted to carry out

what were, for all intents and purposes, Army cooperation missions, these issues

became very personal on a daily basis.

The U.S. Military Attaché in Buenos Aires as of February 18, 1933, Captain Frederick D.

Sharp, USA, wrote a remarkably candid report on the relative motivation and morale

issues facing the two warring nations. While not intended as any slight to the veterans

who suffered so much in a conflict that was poorly understood at the troop level, these

viewpoints are appropriate, coming from a neutral observer, in gaining a fuller

understanding of why events unfolded as they did.

In describing the Paraguayan Army solder he stated that “…. he is a fierce and

audacious fighter individually. He is well trained in the use of his rifle, and especially his

conflict.

machete. He would rather die than be captured. He has intestinal fortitude to a marked

degree. He is loyal and faithful. He is now well supplied with all manner of weapons,

ammunition and food. He is under the command of able chiefs. He is well organized,

however, due to politics and the waiting for an act of the almighty to smite the Bolivians,

he holds back and will not assume the active offensive to consummate a victory -

although he will counter attack to regain his lost positions.”

With regard to the Bolivians, troops, he was noticeable less sanguine. He wrote, “ The

Bolivian on the other hand, is an indian of low mentality, individually not a good fighter

and not well disciplined. He has no desire to be in the Chaco, finds himself there only

because he has been forced into it, by his white or Cholo brothers; lacks instruction in

the use of his arms and fears the Paraguayan machete above all. He would rather be a

prisoner, eating well and away from danger, than to be defending his country. He is not

interested in the war. He is not loyal - deserting when the opportunity presents itself. He

is not a good fighter and lacks nerve. He is easily excited, losing his life as a result. He

is well supplied with arms, ammunition and food, but does not use them to their best

advantage. He is not well organized - at the same time his leaders maneuver him by the

German method of kicking, strafing and use of pistol behind the line while advancing.”

The relative Prisoner-of-War numbers seem to bear out much of what the Attaché

reported.

With regard to the Bolivian leadership and prosecution of the war, he commented in the

same report that “….. President Salamanca has, from the commencement of the

hostilities, forced the hand of his various commanding Generals in the Chaco, making

them attack against their better judgments. He has been the responsible factor in

promoting the war.” In truth, the President did indeed sack and place on the retired list

Generales Quintanella, Mariaco Pando, Lanza and Osorio, and replaced them with

General Kundt or, as the Paraguayans called him, “the rented general.” Of the original

Bolivian General Staff, only General Bilboa remained in the Chaco by February 1933. In

THE CHACO WAR - 1928-1935.pdf

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