taking place between Bolivian and Paraguayan troops. Though thinly inhabited, the region had potential economic value, in part for its forests and grazing land, and in part because of nearby oil fields, for which the best routes of out-shipment ran through the Chaco. For the most part, however, according to Bout, ownership of the Chaco was for both parties mainly a matter of national pride.
When war broke out, however, it seems to have been by accident. After an initial round of action in 1929, both sides mobilized for war, but full-scale fighting did not break out until 1932. While Bolivia had a nominal military superiority, conditions vitiated its advantages; for example, it was required to depend heavily on troops recruited among the Indians of the Bolivian altiplano, who were ill-acclimated to the tropical, sea-level conditions of the Chaco. Paraguay also enjoyed superior military and political leadership. These advantages were not enough to be decisive, however; while Paraguay retook and held the Chaco, it never reached the oil fields that had been a strategic goal. Both sides were exhausted by the time an armistice was reached in June of 1935, after about 80,000 soldiers had died on both sides. The question then became one of converting the armistice into a permanent peace.
The peace negotiations were complicated by many of the same issues that lay behind the long previous non-resolution of the issue. Argentina, though nominally neutral, had a long history of bad relations with Bolivia, and provided supplies and military intelligence to Paraguay. Argentina, eager to supplant the U.S. as hegemonic power, also viewed U.S. participation
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