Ed Strosser - Stupid Wars - A Citizen's Guide to Botched Putsches, Failed Coups, Inane Invasions, and Ridiculous Revolutions

Leadership ability varied on the two sides as well. Bolivia lurched from one dictator to another. In the hundred years up to 1930 the country had endured forty governments and 187 attempted coups. That’s almost two a year for a century. When successful, the coups were usually gentlemanly affairs. The competitors lined up support within the military and at coup time compared lists of supporters, like comparing cards in poker. Whoever held the aces and kings walked away with the office; the loser slouched into well-appointed exile in Europe, the inevitable landing spot for former despots.

Complicating the situation, Bolivia’s president Daniel Sal­amanca led the pro-war party, and his political opponent, Luis Tejada Sorzano, of the antiwar party, held the post of vice president and chief complainer.

Bolivia’s military strategy was daringly brilliant in concep­tion. Given their extremely limited war-fighting capabilities, the best weapon they possessed was the Chaco heat, which would wear down the enemy without firing a shot. The army’s plan, therefore, was to retreat, forcing the Paraguay­ans to fight through the green hell into Bolivia over lengthen­ing supply lines. Then the Bolivians would overrun the worn-out and weakened enemy. But giving up territory would spark an outcry and, of course, a coup. To forestall the inevitable countercoup as long as possible Salamanca re­jected the plan and insisted on aggressive attacks.

By 1932 Bolivia chugged steadily toward war, lacking nothing except arms, a strategy, and the ability to transport its army to the front.

Paraguay, in comparison, was a model of rational plan­ning. In the sixty-one years before the war, the country had forty-one presidents. Bloody coups occurred like the chang­ing seasons. But the people inevitably united behind whoever was presidente in a desperate attempt to stave off elimination from the tournament of countries. They vowed to fight with the grit and determination that had made Paraguayans famous — and in Estigarribia they had a sturdy and knowl­edgeable military hand. To Bolivia this was a war for a for­eign territory; for Paraguay a fight for survival. Paraguay adopted the same rope-a-dope strategy, i.e., stretching enemy supply lines through continuous retreats. But the fear of coups prevented Paraguay from putting the retreat plan into operation. Politics had trumped strategy on both sides.

Finally, for no apparent reason, it became time to decide the champion of the losers’ bracket.

In June 1932, the Bolivians felt bold enough to start the fes­tivities. A small group of their elite fighters attacked a cluster of mud huts, optimistically called a fort, and drove off the defenders — all six of them. “Viva Bolivia,” the victors cried.

Hearing of the attack, Estigarribia, who was commanding an army division in the Chaco, ordered a few dozen troops to retake the mud huts. A few days later the troops attacked but were repulsed. Both sides gathered more troops. By mid-July the Paraguayans had obtained the upper hand and at­tacked. Overwhelmed and scared, the Bolivians retreated.

In Paraguay’s capital, Asunción, a grim determination pre­vailed. Paraguayans were ready to fight, but not eager. For them it was one more uphill fight against a bigger, richer enemy, with bleak prospects for victory. President José P. Guggiari managed to rally the people to the cause by declar­ing his people would fight with the bravery of the old days of the Triple Alliance war. “We must repeat history,” he thun­dered. Irony was not his strength.

In Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, President Salamanca exhorted the crowd into a frenzy. Bolivian honor had been stained. The people wanted blood… and Salamanca promised to deliver. There was also no need to get the country on a war economy. Its vastly superior size and wealth would make this a quick war, the leaders convinced themselves. They agreed to fight it on the cheap.

In a meeting with his army leaders, Salamanca ordered im­mediate reprisals against the Paraguayans. His officers cau­tioned patience, however. The army had only 1,400 men in the Chaco, they told him, and it would be wise to call up re­serves and organize an effective force before starting a major war. Salamanca would have none of that organizing talk. He wanted action. The troops departed for the front amid a chorus of cheers from the capital’s citizens.

In the Chaco, Bolivian troops took two small Paraguayan forts. By August the Bolivian forces had pushed forward and captured Paraguay’s Fort Boquerón, yet another fort that was little more than a shack on a hill. Then they paused as President Salamanca pondered the next Bolivian move.

Estigarribia didn’t pause. He realized he had to throw all of his country’s resources into the fight early or face certain defeat. Paraguay rushed its military-age men into service and through quick training. Bolivia slowly brought its men into service, unwilling to pay for an army. As a result, by Septem­ber Estigarribia’s larger forces besieged the Bolivians at Fort Boquerón. Through weeks of hearty fighting, the garrison slowly melted from lack of food, medicine, water, and con­stant artillery bombardment. In late September the Bolivians, out of ammunition and nearly all dead of dehydration, sur­rendered. The Paraguayans themselves had barely hung on to win because the lake they were using for water had almost completely dried up. The harsh Chaco life was taking nearly as many lives as the bullets.

After Fort Boquerón, the Paraguayans pushed forward as the Bolivian army reeled from defeat to defeat. By December the Bolivians stiffened as the Paraguayan surge ended.

The war stalled at the end of 1932, and the Bolivians called in General Hans Kundt — “Das Ringer.” Everyone perked up when General Kundt, the former German World War I staff officer, goose-stepped to command of their army. He studied the war during his trip over by reading out-of-date newspaper articles on the fighting, believing this would suffice for a Prussian general to thrash any opponent. Bolivi­ans cheered and greeted the imported Prussian with flowery huzzahs when he entered La Paz. Their hero had returned, and the crowds all agreed he would soon bring the hated Paraguayans to their knees. After all, the enemy only had Paraguayans in charge, hardly a match for a general from the country that had practically invented modern war. On Christmas Day, Kundt, armed with his half-sketchy knowl­edge of the fighting and the Chaco terrain, took command of the Bolivian army in the field and began issuing orders as if he were in charge of actual, competent German troops.

But the Bolivians’ problems reached deeper than just poor commanders. To reach the battlefields required long marches through hot, dusty trails. The harsh terrain wore down their soldiers faster than the Paraguayans could. Bolivians came from cool, mountainous regions and were incapable of over­turning centuries of logical belief that a quiet life in the hills was better than traipsing around the deadly Chaco. To these mountain dwellers, the heat and humidity turned the trip into sheer agony, and for many it became a death march. To the leathery Paraguayans, however, it was just like home.

Immediately, Das Ringer earned his pay. In a surprise counterstrike he grabbed the initiative and threw his men in a flanking movement against the Paraguayans, standard op­erating procedure for a Prussian, and it turned the tide against the stunned Paraguayans.

As 1933 began, the war’s toll hit home in Bolivia. Presi­dent Salamanca initiated a draft to boost the army’s man­power as volunteers dropped to a trickle. Gangs of wounded veterans dragooned young men into the army, and they often arrived at the front fortified with only hours of training. Kundt, in full western front mode, drove against the Para­guayans at yet another meaningless place. He planned a three-pronged attack — left flank, center, and right flank — the classic double-envelopment. But his left hook bogged down in swamps and never got into the fight on the first day, Janu­ary 20. Unwilling to change his plan, Kundt pressed ahead, and the two other columns fought without any coordination. The Paraguayans decimated the densely attacking Bolivians with deadly machine-gun fire, imparting to the Bolivians a valuable lesson learned by millions of unfortunate soldiers destroyed by machine guns in the trenches of World War I. The stuck column finally attacked the next day, but now the two other wings were too exhausted to take part, and the Paraguayans stopped it cold. Kundt ordered wave after wave of attacks over the next few days, none more successful than those on the first day. On January 26 the reinforced Para­guayans counterattacked, and both sides settled into deadly trench warfare. Indeed, Kundt had imported the western front to the Chaco.