Brizuela, Francisco (1879–1947)
Brizuela, Francisco (1879–1947)
Francisco Brizuela (b. 17 February 1879; d. 14 August 1947), Paraguayan soldier in the Chaco War and civil war of 1947. Born in Carapeguá, Brizuela entered the armed forces at an early age and participated in several of Paraguay's minor civil wars of the 1900–1920 period. Having advanced to the rank of major, he acted as chief of police for Asunción between June 1918 and September 1919.
Brizuela made little secret of his own political ambitions and therefore spent most of the 1920s out of uniform. At the end of the decade, however, he was called out of retirement to command a Paraguayan infantry division in the early stages of the Chaco War. The energetic defense he prepared at Fort Nanawa in 1933 prevented the Bolivians from advancing southward toward Asunción. Soon afterward, they began their long retreat to the Altiplano.
Brizuela later participated in the 1947 civil war. While attempting to fly munitions to rebel forces in Paraguay, he was killed in an airplane accident outside Montevideo.
See alsoChaco War .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carlos Zubizarreta, Cien vidas paraguayas (1985), pp. 311-313.
R. Andrew Nickson, Historical Dictionary of Paraguay (1993), p. 82.
Additional Bibliography
Farcau, Bruce W. The Chaco War: Bolivia and Paraguay, 1932–1935. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996.
Thomas L. Whigham