Customer Reviews

The Chaco War: Bolivia and Paraguay, 1932-1935

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I like Farcau as an author because he brings to light the little known conflicts of South America. Obviously he has a special link to this area as his wife and father in law are Bolivian. Of his two works, The War of the Pacific is by far the better. In the Chaco War, he details the military and political battles that led to Bolivia and Paraguay going to war over worthless semi arid land. This war resulted in 100,000 deaths and pointed to the incapacity of the League of Nations in controlling conflict.
Farcau does a good job in showing why the Bolivians lost even though they had more money and people. The Bolivians fought between themselves. The military fought the politicians. The generals fought other generals. Paraguay had a unified system where the politicians supported the generals. The result was a win by Paraguay of huge tracks of worthless land.
As a previous reader has already noted, this book is riddled with typos. Also the one map did not help the reader in understanding how the military forces were moved. There should have been ten maps in this book, detailing the moves of the various campaigns. I felt lost reading of the movements without having a map to consult. Otherwise a fairly decent read.

In 1932, Bolivia and Paraguay went to war over a large, flat, sparsely watered plateau called the Gran Chaco. Over the course of three years, the two armies, exhibiting constant bravery and periodic stupidity, dueled, generating at least 90,000 deaths. In this book, Bruce Farcau does a masterful job of educating the reader on what happened during those three unhappy years.

Sadly, this book (I read the 1996 edition) misses being the masterpiece it should have been. First of all, as with too many recent works, it is riddled with typographical errors. (For example, the very first page of the preface (the first page of the book) says, "In this book I have tried to pain [sic] a human face on a decidedly inhuman war.") Secondly, this book contains only one map, a map reprinted from a magazine, and its color-coded illustrations sink into near meaninglessness in the black-and-white reproduction.

That said, though, this is a great book, and well worth reading for anyone interested in learning about the Chaco War. With a quick proofreading, some better maps, and maybe a few pictures, a second edition of this book could be a masterpiece in fact. So, I give this book an only somewhat qualified recommendation.

The author provides a very nice overview of a war that many people have never heard about. Considering that many readers (myself included) may not have an complete grasp of early-mid 1900's South American politics, the author has done remarkably well providing background information for the reader. The text is well textured but to the point, and gives one valuable insights into the motives and actions of the people involved and of the war as a whole. Excellent reading on an obscure topic.

The author lavishly details each little skirmish of a war few have heard of and fewer have any interest in. Truly a war of unknown soldiers, from private to general, each dies in his own little patch of a parched hell known as the Chaco. After three years the body count reaches 100,000, fully 40% of the total combatants...and they may have been the lucky ones.

If ever there was a war of futility;started by miscalculation,maintained out of pride and stubbornness, and finally ended by the absolute exhaustion born of the knowledge that there were no more men left to submit to that meatgrinder that was the Chaco.The final indignity for all concerned was that the war could not even be ended until a Nobel Peace Prize had been guaranteed to the "honest broker" called upon to mediate the differences between the two countries.

The winners gained nothing; the losers lost everything.

Yet isn't this war in a nutshell.Futile,miserable,degrading.
Yet there are lessons to be learned from this outrage and of all the lessons, the most important seems to be that it is the "little wars" amongst the most feeble powers that incite our worst bullies to begin the bigger wars that consume millions.

Upon seeing that the League of Nations could or would do nothing about the War in the Chaco,Musellini attached Ethiopia;Hitler bullied Austria and the Japanese became sure that nothing would be done about their incursions in Korea and China.If the League could not stop the most feeble and timid, what harm would they attempt if the aggressor was bold and powerful.

The author shows the full horror of the Chaco to remind us that the "Great Wars" do not come of their own volition but as a result of the vacuum created when good men fail to act to save our most vulnerable...from themselves.

An "Editor's Choice" in the Winter 1997 "MHQ Review." Editor-in-Chief Robert Cowley writes: "Think of World War I as scripted by Mad Max: The result might be the Chaco War....Farcau strives admirably to make sense of a struggle that was basically senseless."