Patagonian War

The Patagonian War was the second largest conflict to occur on the South American Continent in the last 12 years. After tensions between the two rival governments of Argentina and Patagonia, both claiming the other to be false, blew over and cause a war to break out between the two with Chile supporting Patagonia. Despite fighting two countries at once the professional army of Argentina along with the horrible tactical position of Chile would result in the defeat of the Revolution in South America, especially as the Third Internationale was focusing on themselves getting prepared for confrontation in Europe and thus it did not support it's allies in South America. The end result of this conflict was a massive redistribution of power within Latin America as Chile was forced to demilitarize and also remove it's Socialist government in return for it being able to retain its independence. But also this war gave Argentina an excuse to massively militarize allowing it to become the strongest country in Latin America as Brazil was still in Civil War.

## Prelude

The origins of the Patagonian War go back to the year 1920 with the outbreak of massive strikes in Argentina in its Patagonian province. The area had been exploited by the Argentine government for years but the final straw was wen the workers entire livelihood had collapsed with the drop in wool prices caused by the end of the Weltkrieg. This led to an economic crisis in the south witch gave the anarchists and other socialist aligned groups to seize power and turn Patagonia into the first and only example of an anarchist society. However this very nearly did not come to pass with Argentina attempting to suppress Patagonia in the 1920s. However this would fail and would lead to the stand on the Rio Negro witch would become the de facto border between the two states. For the next 17 years no conflict would occur but this did not mean that nothing would change in the region. To the west Chile would fall into socialist revolution like Argentina with it becoming a state very supportive of Patagonia. But also the Christmas coup in Argentina to the north establishing an Integralist military dictatorship. In 1936 the Black Monday Crisis would shake all of the capitalist nations around the world but it also strengthened the socialist cause. But unfortunately for the socialists of South America the nations here would only undergo harsh repression as Integralist societies would develop in Paraguay, Peru, and Bolivia. This led to fears within the Chilean and Patagonian governments that victory against Argentina would not be possible given the failure of the Revolution in the America's aside from the United States in North America. Thus the two nations would reach out to Argentina for a potential peaceful resolution to the conflict in June of 1939 with the Montevideo convention. But this would fail utterly as the two governments of Patagonia and Argentina were so far apart from each other politically that it would be impossible to create a stable society trying to stitch the two back together. Argentina however had simply been biding its time with it believing full well that the negotiations would fail. So it had secretly mobilized its armies using the convention to distract the other two nations. And after the failure of negotiations in July of 1939, Argentina would declare a state of war only a few days after the failure of the conference. With little warning Patagonia and Chile were forced to enact emergency mobilization as the Patagonian War would begin.

## 1939

The Patagonian War would begin with a large scale Argentinian offensive against Patagonian forces. Due to Patagonia not being ready for the war it was immediately on the back foot, but also the disorganized nature of its military with elected officers meant that Patagonia would soon fall into the same infighting and bad leadership that consumed the Russian Revolution 2 decades prior. With chaos breaking out in Patagonia it would fall within only 3 weeks and the capital at Puerto Madryn would be the only place offering significant resistance. However after a devastating siege that would leave half of the city in ruins the Patagonian "Government" would collapse and the entire region would fall to Argentina. To the North Paraguay would declare its own war beginning the concurrent Chaco War witch is generally considered to be a separate conflict. While Patagonia had collapsed some of its units still survived and were in the far south of the country. However these to would also be destroyed and the Patagonian Worker's Front would be taken out entirely with no organized resistance. However there would be an insurgency that would last for years and on some of the far southern islands still remains, However Argentina was unable to advance much further as the summer began to set in on the Andes and Patagonia. The harsh winds would prevent a crossing of the Andes mountains by Argentine troops as it would be to dangerous to attempt, however Chile would begin a limited offensive in Patagonia hoping to restart resistance in the South. But this would completely fall upon its head with the bad infrastructure causing such attrition that the offensive would have to be called off despite limited successes all across the front. Tierra Del Fuego would be one of the several islands to be taken. The attempted evacuation from this Island would lead to the only naval engagement of the war where the outdated Argentine navy would go head to head with the Chilean one leading to a partial Chilean victory. With that the last operation of the year 1939 had ended and the two nations would wait for 1940. In the meantime Argentina began to plan with a massive scale operation to cross the Andes mountain range despite the difficulties that come with that challenge. This would also make use of Bolivia giving military access to Argentine troops who would launch an offensive into Chile.

## 1940

1940 would begin with the summer of that year witch would remain quite windy witch would disrupt operations, However a break in the wind would occur mid February as the transition to Spring began. This would allow for Argentina to launch a full scale invasion of Chile with several crossings made all across the frontline as mountain passes were used to the best of their abilities. This would completely shock not only Chile but the wider world as crossing such a large mountain range was a difficult feat and has been equated with similar feats in other wars across the globe. This would be devastating for the Chilean war effort as their forces were mostly located near the Bolivian border in the Atacama Desert and also in the south where the mountains tapered out. This would allow Argentina to cut Chile into 5 pieces and also launch an offensive in the North and South seizing some of Chile's most inhospitable regions. Chilean forces would hold out for another month as all across the frontline significant victories were won for both sides. An example of this would be the battle of Santiago as Argentine forces would attempt to siege and encircle the city. But the brave actions of a Motorized division would allow for the forces to link up with the main body of the pocket and would later see the development of a counter-encirclement. But for every victory there was a loss and Argentina would continue to slowly put pressure on these pockets and one by one they would begin to surrender. The Atacama pocket would surrender first given the were geographically very separated from the rest of the units and were running low on supplies. The Second pocket was the one at Puerto Montt one of the largest cities in the region witch was also significantly separated and was the largest of the pockets, thus also leading to supply issues. Then the pocket of La Serena would fall next due to similar reasons however its pocket was the smallest of the bunch. The Next pocket was the one at Concepción witch despite a great last stand would fall due to overwhelming firepower and numbers pitted against it. With little other choice the Santiago pocket would fall next as part of the general surrender of the Chilean government. However this surrender was conditional with the conditions that the Atacama desert was not ceded to Bolivia and that Chile was not annexed fully. Thus negotiations would begin in Buenos Aries, mostly about the future of Chile and not over Patagonia, who's fate was sealed.

## Treaty of Buenos Aries

The Treaty of Buenos Aries would begin with the fate of the Patagonian Worker's Front. Patagonia was to be completely reorganized and while individual workers would be forgiven for their actions the leaders of Patagonia were to be systematically found and imprisoned for treason. With some other clauses the dream of freedom in Patagonia was crushed as the last socialist nation to not fall into the trap of Autocracy. Meanwhile Chile's future was a lot more difficult to try and figure out. Land concessions would go quite quickly as Bolivia hadn't participated in the war and thus was not invited into negotiations, However Argentina would demand all territory south of Puerto Montt aside from the small peninsula to its west. Chile, despite protests of losing so much land, would eventually concede to Argentinian demands. However the next question was over the government of Chile. It was socialist and was deemed to be a threat should it be allowed to continue and thus it was decided that in order to stop future revolutions the government would be replaced. However the initial plan was to make Chile into a state similar to the fate of Paraguay only a few weeks later. However Chilean delegates would absolutely not accept to be a vassal and after some negotiations it was decided to allow Chile independence, in return for it to demilitarize. While this would hurt the Chilean's national pride it was better than being a puppet and after some extremely heavy regulations that match those emplaced upon North France after the Second Weltkrieg it was agreed for Chilean independence. However the impact of this war would go much further than Chile or Argentina as the entire power balance of Latin America was turned on its head.

## Aftermath

The Aftermath of the Patagonian War was that of complete and utter shock for the continent of South America. Chile now basically could do nothing and would become isolated on the South American diplomatic stage. While Argentina and Bolivia would create a new block of powers witch would be joined by Peru and their puppet Paraguay. Brazil was in a civil war that wouldn't end till 1945 leaving them completely out of Latin American politics. This would allow Argentina to annex Uruguay due to Brazil being unable to prevent such an event due to the Civil War. But the effects of this would go even deeper as socialism was discredited on the continent due to its failure to win the war. This likely saved nations like Haiti from similar socialist revolutions occurring and thus may be the reason why Latin America did not fall into Socialism despite thousands fleeing across the sea from France into Latin American countries.