The Chaco War

 

The Gran Chaco is the most inhospitable part of the inhospitable Chaco Boreal, a largely uninhabited, 250,000 sq-mi region west of the Paraguay River and east of the foothills of the Andes in Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina. It is an arid, semi-desert, where some of the highest temperatures recorded in South America are encountered. In the west, near the mountains, the Gran Chaco is a flat, sparsely vegetated, waterless plain. Further east it is a thick, dry, almost impassable thornbrush jungle punctuated by dense stands of quebracho trees and grassy clearings. There are few people, but myriad biting, stinging insects and many tropical diseases. Prior to 1928, the region's only real value was the tannin extracted from its quebrachos and the meager grazing it provided for cattle. Such was the unlikely bone of contention in South America¿s bloodiest, twentieth-century war.

 

From: west of the Paraguay River and east of the foothills of the Andes

THE CHACO WAR 1932-35