Talk:Chaco War

message: "the war's 100,000 casualties" - usually "casualties" refers to both dead and wounded, but 100,000 is the number of dead, right?? I don't know enough about this subject to edit it myself, but it should be clarified.  220.253.116.234 01:08, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely true. In any endeavor, "casualties" include killed, wounded, missing in action, and also seriously sick people, such as with malaria, yellow fever, or driven crazy in combat in such activities as warfare, construction projects (e.g. the Panama Canal). Whoever got the idea that "casualties" only included the killed was sadly mistaken.98.81.14.72 (talk) 03:10, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Casualties versus deaths 

message: :Someone here has a serious problem in that in English, these words and the ones similar to the are always capitalized. Bolivian, Paraguayan, Paraguay, and Argentina. This should be done on automatic pilot! When I write Spanish, I follow the rules of Spanish. When I write German, I follow the rules of German. When you write English, you MUST follow the rules of English concerning capitalization, punctuation, etc.98.81.14.72 (talk) 03:20, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  The begining of this war 

message: No one... but I am not talking about the pacifist topic that "everybody loses in a war". The origin of the war was a territory dispute. But,  deep inside, the economic interest in petrolitstic regions in the southeast of actual Bolivia.
Formally, Chaco War hasn't a winner. Peace Treaty talk about "Without winners nor losers". Paragay keep the control of the majority territory disputed. That's why something they "win" the war. Bolivia keeps the rich oil resources and keeps a port over Paraguay River. Paraguay keep vast territory, duplicating his initial.
* This is actually false information. The problem about borders comes from the poor job the Spaniards did during the colonial times to properly draw each nations borders, thus leaving no documents to clearly state them; yet in Paraguay the entire Chaco region has always been considered Paraguayan territory. This can be supported by historical background, such as why did Argentina claim some Chaco territory after the War of the Triple Alliance if it was originally Bolivian territory? And also, why the need of a war if what Bolivia was after was a port on Paraguay River? Veritiel (talk) 21:20, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who won the War? 

message: See Talk:War of the Triple Alliance#Contradiction. --208.76.104.133 (talk) 08:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction 

message: Some mention should be made discussing the unfair treatment of indigenous peoples at the time of this war. Many Indian communities were reduced to exclusively women, children, and the elderly after draft enforcers rounded up Indians to serve the war. In addition, the scarcity of soldiers made it necessary for most indigenous people engaged in the war to serve in the frontline. The largest contingent of the Chaco War army were in fact Indian communities.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Carleyp (talk • contribs) 03:10, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Indian Communities and the War

message: How come the war started in 1932, 500 kms from asuncion, the capital city of Paraguay, and ended formally in mid 1935, 1200 kms from there? 
How come the final tally of the war, even by bolivians records, mentioned 60.000 bolivian casualties, to only 35.000 paraguayans? 
How come Bolivia supposedly started the war at inferior conditions, yet during the war they mobilized more than 250.000 effectives, against only 130.000 paraguayans mobilized for the same period?
At one point, the bolivian army was commanded by a german mercenary called Hans Kundt, regarded in Bolivia as a military mastermind, genius, while acknowledged as a mere corporal in his country. Bolivia changed the whole military high staff 4 times during the war, not to mention that they staged a coup d´etat to overthrow their own president.During this whole period, paraguay kept the same commander in chief J.F. Estigarribia and president of the nation Eusebio Ayala.
Bolivia had 5 airplanes for every paraguayan plane, yet the final tally of the war showed 9 bolivian planes shot versus 8 paraguayans. Bolivia had armored tanks, flame throwers, machinegunes, sub muchineguns, etc. Basically an army fully prepared against the paraguayasn which at the start of the war wer armed with old spanish mausers, bought as a bargain due to manufacture deffects. This were called "mata-paraguayos (paraguayan killer)" because it was evenly likely to cause an injury to the shooter because of manufacture deffects, as to the victim of the shoot.
The final tally of the war for pows was of 20.000 bolivians, versus only 3.000 paraguayans, according to bolivian sources.
Off course in a war nobody wins, except arm dealers and other vultures. Yet from this statistical perspective, is it difficult to muster a conclusion?
Amilcar Zestogonia, paraguayan. If anybody doubts what I´m proposing, then please answer my questions otherwise...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.16.65.127 (talk) 04:08, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Paraguay clearly won, if not, answer this questions

message: Exactly how much territory did Paraguay control before the war? I've seen maps showing the entire Chaco as part of Bolivia, and others with the border between the two countries along the 26th parallel.
208.101.128.57 (talk) 08:38, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extent of Paraguay's prewar boundaries. 

message: I think that disaster belongs to the Mexican Revolution (of 1910) and its about 1,000,000 deaths.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.87.19.194 (talk) 23:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe one can have in mind that of the combined populations of the countries taking part in this thing.....maybe it was two percent of the total populations that died during the Chaco War. Was the Mexican Revolution in 20th century. I thought it was in the 19th century. --83.108.28.69 (talk) 21:28, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: When evaluating the bloodiness of a war, it is important to compare the deaths to the entire population. For example, the United States lost a LOT of soldiers, sailors, and Marines in the war against Japan, but the U.S. has a much larger population that Japan does. The deaths caused by the war in Japan were a much higher percentage than was the percentage in the United States. Also, Japan lost far more buildings, ships, airplanes, and everything else that you can think of.98.81.14.72 (talk) 03:51, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Mexican Revolution: 1910 - 1919 (don't confuse it with Mexican War of Independence of 1810 - 1820.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.87.19.194 (talk) 22:44, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bloodiest conflict in the Americas in the [[20th century]]? 

message: Huge civilian casualties in a conflict over a largely deserted region sounds very suspicious. I have read dozens of accounts about the Chaco War and I don't remember any instance of civilian deaths, although I guess there could have been a number of these in the course of Bolivian airstrikes along the Paraguay river or in and around the Bolivian cities of Villa Montes and Charagua in the last months of the struggle. A figure in the thousands, however, seems extremely unlikely.--Darius (talk) 16:07, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought it seemed unlikely but the source states that and the source is reliable. It may be deaths from starvation and not from direct military action.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.213.87 (talk) 16:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: If you read the book can you tell the exact page where the civilian toll is mentioned?  That the figure of a war of the 1930s is mentioned in a book named World Military and Social Expenditures 1987-88 is to me unlikely (apart from the reasons given by Dagos/Darius). Chiton (talk) 16:34, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

text: Agree with Chiton, you must cite the exact page. On the other hand, I found this comparision of sources regarding the Chaco casualties; the only one focusing on civilian fatalities is Eckhardt. My conclusion is that since the majority of authors specifically mention only combat deaths or at least don't discern between civilians and military personnel, we should refrain from citing Eckhardt per WP:UNDUE.--Darius (talk) 23:37, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Civilian death toll in the infobox

message: There's absolutely no mention about the involvement of Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell in the conflict and the real reason for this war - discovery of oil in the Gran Chaco region. What a shame.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.105.155.183 (talk) 18:08, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The origin of the war is commonly attributed to a conflict between the oil companies Royal Dutch Shell backing Paraguay and Standard Oil supporting Bolivia.[6] Scholar Rafael Archondo dispute claims that the war would have been caused by interests of these companies and emphasizes the aims of Argentina to import oil from the Chaco.[6]
The reader of the article needs from the begining (the lead) understand that war is usually seen as a conflict over oil with Shell and Standard oil being accused of being behind the conflict. While the importance of oil in the conflict is widely acknowledged the Shell vs. Standard oil thesis is disputed but has such importance to understand the views on the war that it is a must in the lead. Dentren | Talk 00:24, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

text: Hi Dentren, my apologies for reverting one of your edits without reading first, my only concern was the inclusion of the Shell and the Standard oil on the infobox, but their current mention on the lede is fine. Best Regards.--Darius (talk) 15:23, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oil 

message: The following sourced statement appears to be under dispute for its inclusion in the lead:
:The origin of the war is commonly attributed to a conflict between the oil companies Royal Dutch Shell backing Paraguay and Standard Oil supporting Bolivia.[6] Scholar Rafael Archondo dispute claims that the war would have been caused by interests of these companies and emphasizes the aims of Argentina to import oil from the Chaco.[6]
The reader of the article needs from the begining (the lead) understand that war is usually seen as a conflict over oil with Shell and Standard oil being accused of being behind the conflict. While the importance of oil in the conflict is widely acknowledged the Shell vs. Standard oil thesis is disputed but has such importance to understand the views on the war that it is a must in the lead. Dentren | Talk 00:24, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Dentren, my apologies for reverting one of your edits without reading first, my only concern was the inclusion of the Shell and the Standard oil on the infobox, but their current mention on the lede is fine. Best Regards.--Darius (talk) 15:23, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Mention of oil and oil companies in the lead

message: Could someone try link to this article? or is it a case of WP:LISTCRUFT? Gbawden (talk) 10:03, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[List of Chaco War firearms]] 

message: The main statement of the "Historiography" section reads: "Almost all of the historical work done in both nations is dominated by the "heroic" interpretation with the war being presented simply as a matter of willpower with neither Bolivian nor Paraguayan historians having any interest in other aspects of the war like logistics as a determinate factor." This line contradicts the rest of the article, where an overwhelming number of Spanish-language sources or English-language authors citing works in Spanish describe the war from different aspects (tactical, strategic, economic and yes, logistic). I think the section gives undue weight to the sloppy introduction of Huges article, whose main topic by the way is logistics, not historiography. 
It's worth to mention, however, that Hughes only used the term "heroic" in relation to Estigarribia's memoirs; what he actually pointed out is the lack of a great "theoretical framework" about the Chaco War, and that the Spanish language bibliography is scattered in personal narratives from first-hand witnesses of the battles. The understandable focus of Hughes on the scarse English-language sources also fails WP:WORLDVIEW; even a source written in Greek, if reliable, is welcomed here. Another issue, as I wrote above, is that a section which deals with historiography relies on an article whose main topic is logistics. If this section is to stand, it should be rewritten using a more specific source.
The "marxist" dependence theory deserves a chapter apart. The topic is plainly redundant, since it is analysed in depth in the first paragraph of the "Origins" section. The text should be moved there and merged with.--Darius (talk) 23:56, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Historiography" section 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion 

message: This claim -- "the small nomadic indigenous population of Guaraní-speaking tribes was related to Paraguay's own Guaraní heritage" -- is misleading. The Tapiete and a couple other Chaco communities are speakers of closely related languages, but the vast majority of Chaco indigenous groups who were involved in and affected by the conflict speak unrelated languages. There were attempts by Paraguayan society and academia to assert cultural affiliation with groups like the Maká and Lengua (now Enxet), but Guaranian Chaco groups are and were a small minority. 2803:7D80:A000:8424:5527:3BD5:D470:9B05 (talk) 23:51, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extant indigenous communities 

message: Hello everyone, I suggest we get rid of the supporting belligerents in the infobox. First off, there were several more countries involved than the ones currently listed, and mentioning only some seems to give extremely undue weight to them – the Czechoslovak "support" consisted of five volunteers. Meanwhile Russia or Chile, not even mentioned in the infobox, had several dozen military personnel involved! As it stands, the infobox does not reflect the big picture at all in a balanced manner that is to be expected of wikipedia. I would do so myself but I don't know how to handle the refs, as deleting the belligerents from the infobox would orphan the refs or remove them altogeter and they are used elsewhere, it seems? 2A00:1028:8398:9A8E:604F:7C0A:5D63:2784 (talk) 14:05, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove the "supported by" belligerents