"War is terrible, but the causes of war are sometimes laughably trivial. Central America seems to have a special knack for silly casus belli. . . . in 1937, Nicaragua and Honduras almost came to blows… over a stamp."
Came across this one quite by accident. Not only Nicaragua and Honduras. Bolivia and Paraguay too.
Long before the Chaco War and commencement of actual hostilities there was the war of the stamps.
Competing land claims between Bolivia and Paraguay over the land of the Chaco boreal as expressed by stamps. "This land is OUR land!"
Click on image to see an enlarged view. "Paraguayan (1924, 1927 and 1932) and Bolivian (1928) stamps. The 1924 Paraguayan stamp shows no border with Bolivia. In 1927, the border is shown to run to the north from Gran Chaco. In 1932, it had moved even farther north with the disputed territory called Paraguayan Chaco; with slogan saying 'was, is and will be [ours]'. The Bolivian stamp labels the region as the Bolivian Chaco."
See previous blog entry with many additional links various media as used to express revanchist ideals or territorial designs:
https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2019/11/abominable.html
https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2022/11/scarf.html
coolbert.
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