At Canada Strongest

At Canada Strongest

Canada Strongest has nothing whatever to do with a British Dominion or ginger ale. A canada is a Spanish dingle. Canada Strongest is a narrow valley named for a Bolivian soccer team, about 15 mi. northeast of Fort Ballivian in the Gran Chaco. There last week nearly 100,000 men of the armies of Bolivia and Paraguay were concentrated for what each hoped would be the deciding battle of their war.

Attempting to outflank Fort Ballivian, Paraguay's shrewd General Jose Felix Estigarribia sent three full divisions inland from the Pilcomayo River. At Canada Strongest the Bolivians struck. All the world has helped supply both armies with munitions, but there was a particularly Franco-Prussian cast to the battle of Canada Strongest. Youthful General Estigarribia, Paraguayan Commander-in-Chief, is French-trained, a graduate of the French cavalry school at Saumur and the great military academy of St.-Cyr. Bolivia's General Enrique Penaranda del Castillo is German-trained and served under Bolivia's dismissed Prussian commander. General Hans Kundt

(TIME, Dec. 25). No foreign correspondents were within 100 miles of Strongest but from official dispatches it seemed that the German pupil won.

Paraguay's most optimistic account was that they had halted the Bolivian attack with "normal losses.'' Bolivia jubilated:

"Col. Bernardino Bilbao Rioja and his 2nd Bolivian Division have smashed the 2nd Paraguayan Division, cut off the 7th Paraguayan from establishing contact with the 8th, and completely encircled the left wing of the Paraguayan force. . . . Collecting the great number of Paraguayan wounded has placed a heavy burden on all Bolivian detachments." Later figures gave Paraguayan losses at 3,000 dead, 5,000 wounded, 1,633 prisoners including 78 officers. Paraguay did not take this defeat quietly. To the League's Secretary in Geneva Ramon Caballero de Bedoya announced that, to its great regret, Paraguay was about to embark on a campaign of terrorism and bombing of un- fortified towns. "Paraguay's decision," explained Senor de Bedoya, i:is justified by the fact that Bolivia was the first to employ these methods of terrorism. . . . Despite repugnance for these barbarous methods, Paraguay finds herself compelled to use them." Meanwhile the U. S. Congress passed the resolution granting President Roosevelt authority to ban the sale of arms to either belligerent. No sooner had the President signed it than he put it into effect by proclamation. In Santiago, Chile, El Impartial pointed out that the U. S., Britain and France were by no means the only countries guilty of keeping the slaughter going. Holland and Norway have sold the fighters rifle ammunition, Denmark. Madsen machine guns. Sweden, Bofors cannon. Spain, Oviedo rifles, Czechoslovakia's Brno Works, automatic rifles. How Paraguay paid for all this remained a mystery. Bolivia has financed the war without recourse to extreme taxation, entirely on tin, her greatest export.

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