Bolivia - The Legacy of the Chaco War
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Bolivia
The Legacy of the Chaco War
From the outset of the Chaco War (1932-1935), Bolivia's
Aviation
Corps--with forty-nine aircraft, including twenty-eight
combat
aircraft--established aerial superiority, flying frequent
tactical support and bombing missions. Its transport
element also
was active in supplying the troops in the combat zone.
Once
mobilized, Bolivia's army consisted of nine divisions and
more
than 12,000 troops, a number that later rose to 25,000.
However,
in addition to being ill equipped, poorly supplied, and
disastrously led, the army consisted largely of homesick,
bewildered highland Indians (indios) from the Altiplano
(highland
plateau) who had been conscripted or impressed into
service. They
fought stubbornly and stoically, but the more resourceful,
better-led, and determined Paraguayans, with a mobilized
force of
24,000, gradually pushed them back.
Throughout the Chaco War, Bolivia's army Staff (Estado
Mayor--
EM) feuded with the civilian leadership. The
civil-military
relationship deteriorated, creating a legacy of bitterness
that
continued into the postwar period. The war was a
humiliating
defeat for Bolivia, as well as for its German-trained
army. Of a
total of 250,000 Bolivian troops mobilized, as many as
65,000
were killed. Moreover, Bolivia not only had to give up
most of
the Chaco territory but also spent the equivalent of some
US$200
million in its war effort, nearly bankrupting the already
impoverished nation.
As a consequence of the debacle in the Chaco, Bolivia's
army
became more politically aware and ready to act as an
institution
in pursuit of its own political goals. It began by
deposing
Daniel Salamanca Urey (1931-34), the elitist president who
had
led the country into its disastrous foreign war. For the
first
time since 1880, the army returned to power. Although both
Bolivia and Paraguay were required by the terms of the
armistice
to reduce their armies to 5,000 men, Bolivia circumvented
the
restriction by creating a military police "legion" as an
unofficial extension of the army.
After the restrictions of the armistice lapsed with the
signing
by both countries of a peace treaty in 1938, Bolivia built
up its
battered army. The army retained its basic prewar
organization,
although units formerly assigned to the Chaco were
necessarily
relocated. In an effort to professionalize the military,
the
regime of Colonel David Toro Ruilova (1936-37) invited an
Italian
military mission to establish two military academies in
Bolivia:
the Superior War School (Escuela Superior de Guerra--ESG),
the
former CEM in La Paz for EMG officers; and the "Marshal
Jos?
Ballivi?n" School of Arms (Escuela de Aplicaci?n de Armas
"Mariscal Jos? Ballivi?n"--EAA) in Cochabamba, primarily
for
junior officers. The new schools provided instruction for
the
first time in such subjects as sociology and political
science.
Nevertheless, the Italian missions, along with other
military
missions from Spain and Czechoslovakia in the 1920s and
1930s,
had little impact on Bolivia's Armed Forces (Fuerzas
Armadas--
FF.AA.).
During this period, Bolivia and the United States also
established close military cooperation for the first time.
Beginning in 1941 and 1942, United States aviation and
military
missions were active in Bolivia, and the country began
receiving
limited military aid under the wartime Lend-Lease
Agreement. The
United States air mission reorganized the Aviation Corps
into the
Bolivian Air Force (Fuerza de Aviaci?n Boliviana--FAB),
which
remained subordinate to the army.
Despite gradual improvements in professional standards,
the
military remained a traditional institution for decades
after the
Chaco War. The officer corps--divided and fractionalized
by
interservice rivalry, personal ambitions, differing
ideological
and geographical perspectives, and generational
differences--was
alternately dominated by reformists and conservatives. The
reformist military regimes of three colonels--Toro, Germ?n
Busch
Becerra (1937-39), and Gualberto Villarroel L?pez
(1943-46)--all
contributed to the polarization of the officer corps along
generational and ideological lines. The conservative
business
leaders who took power in 1946 attempted to reverse the
trend of
military control of government by having military courts
try more
than 100 field-grade and junior officers for political
activities
proscribed by the constitution of 1947; many were
convicted and
discharged from the army.
Data as of December 1989
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