Chaco War: Difference between revisions

=== Prelude to the war ===

[[File:Paraguay-bolivia-1924-1935.jpg|left|thumb|350px|Paraguayan (1924, 1927 and 1932) and Bolivian (1928) stamps. The 1924 Paraguayan stamp shows no border with Bolivia, in 1927 the border runs to the north from Gran Chaco – it later moved even further north with the disputed territory called ''Paraguayan Chaco''; with slogan saying "was, is and will be [ours]". The Bolivian stamp labels the region as the ''Bolivian Chaco''.]]

The first confrontation between the two countries dates back to 1885, when the Bolivian entrepreneur Miguel Araña Suárez founded Puerto Pacheco, a port on the upper Paraguay river, south of Bahía Negra. He assumed that the new settlement was well inside Bolivian territory, but Bolivia had implicitly recognized Bahía Negra as Paraguayan.{{citation needed|date=February 2016}} The Paraguayan government sent in a naval detachment aboard the gunboat ''Pirapó'', which forcibly evicted the Bolivians from the area in 1888.<ref>Farcau, p. 8</ref><ref name=segunda>[http://www.histarmar.com.ar/ArmadasExtranjeras/Paraguay/ArmParaguaya-Ehlers-02-2aArmada.htm La Armada Paraguaya: La Segunda Armada] {{in lang|es}}</ref> Two agreements followed—in 1894 and 1907—which neither the Bolivian nor the Paraguayan parliament ever approved.<ref>Farcau, p. 9</ref> Meanwhile, in 1905 Bolivia founded two new outposts in the Chaco, Ballivián and Guachalla, this time along the [[Pilcomayo River]]. The Bolivian government ignored the half-hearted Paraguayan official protest.<ref name=segunda />