Yrendagúe, Battle of

views updated

Yrendagúe, Battle of

Battle of Yrendagúe, a conflict that took place at a small fort in Paraguay near the border with Bolivia during the Chaco War (1932–1935). The fighting occurred on 8 December 1934 and secured Paraguay's victory against Bolivia, its landlocked neighbor. Paraguayan General José Félix Estigarribia ordered Colonel Eugenio Garay to occupy Yrendagüe with support from his Eighth Division. The numerically inferior Paraguayan forces marched on foot for about fifty miles to the fort. Once they captured Yrendagüe, the Bolivians lost access to all of the water wells in the area. Water was extremely scarce in that region of the Chaco, and, as a result, 4,000 Bolivian cavalry troops were forced to surrender and perhaps twice that number died of thirst.

See alsoChaco War .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pablo Max Ynsfrán, The Epics of the Chaco War: Memoirs of General Estigarribia (1950).

David H. Zook, The Conduct of the Chaco War (1960).

Additional Bibliography

Cuadros Sánchez, Augusto. Los orígenes de la revolución nacional: La guerra del Chaco y sus seculas, 1932–1943: relato de un cambatiente y "estratega" de la clase tropa. La Paz: Editorial "Los Amigos del Libro," 2003.

Farcau, Bruce W. The Chaco War: Bolivia and Paraguay, 1932–1935. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996.

                                      Miguel A. Gatti

More From encyclopedia.com