The Rise Of Australasia-Chapter 1052 - 785: When Two Kingdoms Clash, the Powers Benefit

Chapter 1052: Chapter 785: When Two Kingdoms Clash, the Powers Benefit

Although the brutal South American version of the Battle of Verdun lasted only three days, it resulted in the loss of more than half of the elite soldiers from both Bolivia and Paraguay.

It could be said that the majority of the troops subsequently committed to the war by the two countries consisted mostly of new recruits with little training.

After the collapse of Savidra, the Bolivian military had lost control of the front line. The front-line troops were in complete disarray, and within less than one week, over thirty military strongholds had been occupied by the Paraguayan army.

Watching the front line on the verge of collapse, the Bolivian military finally became restless. On July 27, 1931, the Bolivian military, believing itself to be well-prepared, launched a major attack on the Paraguayan front-line position at Nanawa Fortress.

Located on the western side of the Paraguayan army, Nanawa Fortress protected their flank. If Nanawa were to fall, not only would the Paraguayan troops in direct combat be threatened from the side, but the Bolivian military might also have the opportunity to move down the river and pose a direct threat to the Paraguayan capital, Asunción.

Given the extreme importance of this side flank military fortress, the Paraguayan side naturally placed great emphasis on it.

The attacking Bolivian military had about 40,000 men, while the defending Paraguayan army had a division, close to 17,000 in scale.

Although outnumbered, Paraguay had equipped Nanawa Fortress with a large number of machine guns from the United Kingdom and Australasia, along with a small number of firearms for firepower output, making this side fortress remarkably strong.

The Australasian officer corps, after a brief assessment, believed that Nanawa Fortress, with a stationed division, could withstand an enemy attack of at least three divisions.

And the current situation faced by Nanawa Fortress was almost exactly the one-on-three scenario previously assessed by the Australasian officer corps.

The assessment made by the Australasian officer corps proved to be almost identical to the actual results of the battle.

Although facing an enemy twice their size, the Paraguayan army managed to hold the fortress with just dozens of machine guns and about ten canons.

However, despite holding their ground, the casualties suffered by the Paraguayan army were still terribly severe.

The battle for Nanawa Fortress lasted for over ten days and inflicted a total of more than fifty thousand casualties on both sides.

Within it, the division stationed at Nanawa Fortress nearly lost all its combat capability, with deaths exceeding 5,000, and most of the rest bore some injury.

On the Bolivian side, of the 40,000 troops that participated in the attack, less than 10,000 were able to retreat back into Bolivia.

The remaining 30,000, more than half died in the battle in front of Nanawa Fortress, their blood directly staining the land near the fortress red, filling the air with the scent of blood for several kilometers.

The reason for the Bolivian military’s heavy casualties was that they launched a fierce attack on Nanawa Fortress with little to no protection.

In such a situation, machine guns became extremely important. Although the Paraguayan side only had dozens of machine guns, the crisscrossed fire coverage effectively eliminated any dead angles in front of the fortress, blocking the Bolivian military’s attack routes.

Adding to this were the occasional outputs of artillery fire and the Paraguayan army’s firepower support from within the fortress, which effectively stopped the Bolivian military at a distance of more than a hundred meters in front of the fortification lines.

Until the end of the war, Bolivian troops could not get within a hundred meters of the fortress and could only lament the sight of the relatively modest-sized stronghold.

After the struggle for Nanawa Fortress concluded, both Bolivia and Paraguay had already suffered heavy losses.

Although the duration of the war was not long, for two countries with modest populations, the casualties at that time had become unbearable.

It should be noted that the Paraguayan army, before the war, comprised only about 3,000 men and was considered to have relatively weak armed forces.

But now, with death tolls nearing 16,000, it was over five times more than the original total military scale.

Not to mention the soldiers and common people who were injured in the war, the total number of casualties had already exceeded 50,000.

Such tremendous losses were nearly crippling for Paraguay, a small country.

On top of this, both countries, in order to win this war, borrowed heavy debts from their supporting nations to purchase weapons, equipment, and strategic resources.

These debts should not be underestimated. Up to now, Bolivia’s total debt to France and ExxonMobil had reached 1.2 billion Francs (5.83 million Pounds), and it continued to climb.

The most uptodat𝓮 n𝒐vels are published on freёnovelkiss.com.

The debts of Paraguay, though less than Bolivia’s, had already neared 7.43 million Australian Dollars (3.71 million Pounds).

It could be said that if the war were to continue, both Bolivia and Paraguay would suffer heavily. The real beneficiaries, perhaps, would be the Powers behind the battle for petroleum.

For powers like France and Britain, the debts lent out would eventually be recovered; there was no need to worry that Bolivia and Paraguay would renege on their debts.

As time moved into August, the war in the region of Northern Chaco entered an even more stuck phase. After both sides suffered casualties exceeding 50,000, the subsequent competition would be over Bolivia’s and Paraguay’s manpower and financial resources.