Battle
The battle began on the 4 July at 9:00 a.m. with the explosion of a large mine just 30 yards short of the main Paraguayan redoubt, followed by a massive frontal attack. Part of the redoubt was seized by the attackers. The Bolivian army engaged the defenders with artillery and mortar fire, air strikes, three Vickers light tanks, two Carden-Lloyd tankettes and four flamethrowers. The Bolivian troops staged a two-pronged assault, one from the north and the other from the south, while a diversionary force established a blocking position in the center. [5] The Paraguayan troops responded with their own artillery fire and 7.62mm armor-piercing rounds. [6] They eventually recovered the fortifications that had been overrun by the Bolivians. [7]
The Bolivians lost one tank to artillery fire, [7] while one of the tankettes was damaged by small-arms fire and the other became stuck in a ditch. Both of them were withdrawn from the front line after this battle, [8] while the crippled tank was eventually blown up by Paraguayan sappers. [7] Four Potez 25s fighter-bombers being used as transport aircraft resupplied the exhausted Paraguayan stockpiles by delivering hand grenades and ammunition. The planes were stripped of their rear machine guns in order to use the gunner's cockpit to load 115 kilograms (254 lb) of ammunition. The aircraft departed from Isla Poí to the south flying over hostile territory and landed on an improvised airstrip close to the battle lines. [9] The airstrip had been hastily built during the first Bolivian offensive. [4] The pilots handed over 1,650 kg of ammunition to the stronghold on the first day of operation. Three Potez 25s were hit by ground fire and forced to make hard landings, but all were eventually recovered and rebuilt. [9] [10]
The Chaco War was fought from 1932 to 1935 between Bolivia and Paraguay, over the control of the northern part of the Gran Chaco region of South America, which was thought to be rich in oil. The war is also referred to as La Guerra de la Sed in literary circles since it was fought in the semi-arid Chaco. The bloodiest interstate military conflict fought in South America in the 20th century, it was fought between two of its poorest countries, both of which had lost territory to neighbours in 19th-century wars.
A tankette is a tracked armoured fighting vehicle that resembles a small tank, roughly the size of a car. It is mainly intended for light infantry support and scouting. Colloquially it may also simply mean a small tank.
The Vickers 6-ton tank or Vickers Mark E, also known as the "Six-tonner", was a British light tank designed in 1928 in a private project at Vickers. Though not adopted by the British Army, it was picked up by several other armed forces, and licensed by the Soviet Union as the T-26. It was also the direct predecessor of the Polish 7TP tank.
The Battle of Guadalajara saw the victory of the Spanish Republican Army and of the International Brigades over the Italian and Nationalist forces attempting to encircle Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. The Nationalist forces involved in the Battle of Guadalajara were primarily the Italian Corps of Volunteer Troops.
The Battle of the Ancre Heights, is the name given to the continuation of British attacks after the Battle of Thiepval Ridge from 26 to 28 September during the Battle of the Somme. The battle was conducted by the Reserve Army from Courcelette near the Albert–Bapaume road, west to Thiepval on Bazentin Ridge. British possession of the heights would deprive the German 1st Army of observation towards Albert to the south-west and give the British observation north over the Ancre valley to the German positions around Beaumont-Hamel, Serre and Beaucourt. The Reserve Army conducted large attacks on 1, 8, 21, 25 October and from 10 to 11 November.
The Colonel Luis Irrazábal Barboza was born in Encarnación, in Itapúa Department, Paraguay, on August 8, 1891, and died on March 16, 1958, in Asunción, capital of Paraguay.
Hans Anton Wilhelm Friedrich Kundt was a German military officer. He was the primary military figure of Bolivia during the two decades preceding the Chaco War.
The Chaco War was the first major Latin American conflict in which aircraft were used. This aerial war carried a large human and materiel cost. At that time, Bolivia possessed one of the greatest aerial forces in the region, however this fact did not prevent its final defeat. Bolivia lacked the expertise to utilise its aerial forces, and was thus unable to maximise its use of military aviation. Paraguay had a small number of pilots and technicians, all veterans of the revolution of 1922. The 1922 revolution was a brief civil war in which the government and the rebels used aircraft in the operations, and José Félix Estigarribia could be considered an innovator in the military use of aircraft on the continent.
The Chaco War (1932–35), between Bolivia and Paraguay, was the first South American conflict in which tanks were employed. They originated exclusively from Bolivia, but Paraguay operated tanks captured from Bolivia during the war.
The Battle of Gondra occurred during the Chaco War between the Bolivian 4th Division, "The Brave Fourth", and the Paraguayan 1st Division, "The Iron Division", stationed around Fort Gondra, from 11 to 15 July 1933, in the aftermath of the Second Battle of Nanawa. The 1st Division enveloped the Bolivian 4th after a series of assaults through the dense woods southwest of Gondra. The Bolivian 34th infantry and the "Lanza" cavalry regiment, led by captain German Busch, fought a rearguard action which allowed the encircled troops to withdraw northward, toward Campo 31, an open field leading to Alihuatá. Meanwhile, the 3rd "Pérez" infantry regiment built up a new blocking position in the eastern part of Campo Vía, a dried bed six kilometers west of Gondra, which prevented any further Paraguayan advance. On 15 July, the Bolivian troops retreated unmolested from the pocket, carrying out all their heavy equipment with them.
The Battle of Campo Grande was a major engagement during the Chaco War, in the southern region of the Chaco Boreal. During this battle, the Paraguayan Army successfully encircled two Bolivian regiments defending two of the three flanks of Fort Alihuatá, forcing them to surrender.
The Battle of Kilometer 7 was a series of clashes during the Chaco War between Bolivian and Paraguayan forces from 7 November 1932 to February 1933, and ended with a Paraguayan retreat to the northeast towards Gondra, later to be the site of the Battle of Campo Jordán. The Paraguayan initiative, which had belonged to the Paraguayans since the beginning of the siege of Boquerón passed to the Bolivian army until the Second Battle of Nanawa in July.
The First Battle of Nanawa was a battle fought from 20 to 26 January 1933 between the Bolivian and Paraguayan armies during the Chaco War. Nanawa, established by the Paraguayans in 1928, was considered the strongest Paraguayan outpost after it was heavily fortified by the end of 1932 under directives of Ivan Belaieff and Nicolas Ern, two White Russian former officers who joined the Paraguayan army in the 1920s. Zig-zag trenches, barbed wire and machine gun nests were built by the garrison around a horseshoe-shaped defence. Nanawa's commander, Col. Luis Irrazábal, summoned under his command four regiments and several minor units which made up the Paraguayan fifth division. The commander-in-chief of the Bolivian army, German World War I veteran Hans Kundt, commanded the Bolivian assault personally in place. The Bolivian army launched three attacks that stalled after seizing some parts of the stronghold. After this failure, the Bolivian troops attempted to dig a trench around the Nanawa complex to isolate it but were met by Paraguayan reinforcements. Heavy rains forced the Bolivians to abandon what they had captured of the complex and the Paraguayans soon recovered these positions.
The Battle of Boquerón was fought from September 7–29, 1932, between the Bolivian and Paraguayan armies in and around the stronghold of Boquerón. It was the first major battle of the Chaco War. The outpost (fortín) of Boquerón, among others, had been occupied by Bolivian troops since late July 1932 following instructions of president Daniel Salamanca, which led to the escalation of what began as a border conflict into a full-scale war. The Bolivian garrison was under the command of Colonel Manuel Marzana.
The Battle of Cañada Strongest was a major military action from May 10 to May 25, 1934 during the Chaco War, in which Paraguayan forces were ambushed and defeated by three Bolivian divisions. The engagement is considered the greatest victory of the Bolivian army during the war.
Below is the timeline of Paraguayan history.
The Battle of Seseña was Republican-Soviet assault on the Nationalist stronghold of Seseña, near Toledo, 30 km south of Madrid in October 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. After the fall of Talavera de la Reina and Toledo in September 1936, the Nationalist troops pushed towards Madrid and in October they were 30 km from the city. The Republican government which had received new Soviet weapons decided to launch a counteroffensive in order to stop the Nationalist offensive at Seseña. The attack failed and the Nationalists resumed their advance towards Madrid. The battle is notable for being the first time that massive tank warfare was seen in the Spanish War and for the use by Nationalist troops of Molotov cocktails against Soviet T-26 tanks.
In the Hell of Chaco is an Argentine black-and-white, silent documentary directed and filmed by Roque Funes from his own script. It premiered on 21 December 1932.
Achim von Kries was a German military officer who served in the 1932-1935 Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, commanding Bolivian armored fighting vehicles. He was wounded in action during the second battle of Nanawa. Von Kries later founded the Landesgruppe-Bolivie, the Bolivia branch of the German Nazi Party's Auslands-Organisation.
The First Battle of Alihuatá was a battle of the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, it took place between March 10 to 13 of 1933 and culminated in the occupation of the Alihuatá fort by the Bolivian army and the withdrawal of the small Paraguayan unit that defended it, allowing the Bolivian 9th Division to cut the supply route from Arce to the Paraguayan 1st Division that was fighting in the area of "Kilometer 7" and Campo Jordán south of Alihuatá.
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