The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 54, July 1950 - April, 1951 Page: 251

Book Reviews

Yet Argentina played a leading role among the American
nations that eventually brought peace after the initial failure of
the efforts of the League of Nations. In his consideration of the
diplomatic aspects of both the war and the peace, Marshal Esti-
garribia ascribes the early failure of Paraguayan diplomacy to
the fact that "conditions of the country had not permitted us to
interweave those vested interests which make friends and secure
influence beyond the frontiers. ... "
Bolivia occupied in the diplomatic arena a position much higher than
our own. ... If we had had ... that inter-association of interests
which ... gives a true importance to a country, [the victory of]
Campo Via would have been an argument of sufficient weight to
terminate the war with a definite acknowledgment of our rights over
the Chaco. ... Beyond our frontiers everyone desired to be "realis-
tic." The big fish always swallows the little fish and it would have
been in the nature of things that Bolivia should swallow Paraguay.
The Paraguayan statesmen of the future must learn from this experi-
ence and give to our country the position that she should occupy in
order that she may be heard and taken into consideration.
And so the war dragged on in a grim succession of episodes by
detachments of both armies, mutually cutting each other's com-
munications and access to water supply. After the final battle of
Yrendagii, some 15,000 Bolivian troops at Picuiba were without
water.
Every individual, a prey to panic, thought only of fleeing in order
to save himself, and no one ventured to resort to combat. Under
those conditions, naturally, there was no chance to organize any
defense. The chiefs and officers seized the trucks for themselves, loaded
the artillery thereon, and took flight with all possible speed to the
Parapiti River. The troops, thus deserted by their officers and driven
to desperation, stampeded, and a horrible catastrophe ensued. Groups
of them, terrorized, ran along the roads, under the torrid Chaco sun
of those days of December, and thousands of soldiers fell dead of
thirst, of fatigue, or of sunstroke.
The war ended officially at 12 o'clock on June 14, 1935. In
that final hour of the tragedy, the victor arranged his own sym-
bolic termination of the conflict. He writes: "I then arranged
that our few airplanes should be decorated with black and white

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