The battle of Gondra had forced the Bolivian high command to remove troops from the front of the 9th Division that defended Alihuatá, leaving the advanced area of the stronghold with only three scattered units.

Commander in Chief General Hans Kundt, who was in the Bullo sector controlling the operation from the barracks at Muñoz, had left specific instructions that the Loa regiment should not be used without his permission.

He and Colonel Banzer, Commander of the 9th Division, assumed that the center of gravity of the Paraguayan offensive was the attack against the Chacaltaya regiment, in the path of Alihuatá-Arce.

[1] The Loa regiment tried to shore up the Ballivián line to prevent the enemy from flanking it, but the Paraguayan troops deployed their forces in such a manner as to threaten to surround both units.

A baffled Colonel Banzer went to Campo Grande and issued emergency measures on his return to Alihuatá, but he was observed by Paraguayan patrols which had also closed that pathway.

The Paraguayans, intending to quickly decide the battle, broke through the Ballivián's line, and the Bolivians were forced to send such troops as kitchen help and couriers to close the gap.

The reason was that Colonel Banzer, on the last visit to his command, had notified him that the 9th Division no longer had any reserves and that all available men were going to be used to help the Chacaltaya regiment that was to be defending the road to Arce, which the enemy would se for its main route of attack.

Colonel Ortiz, head of the Paraguayan 7th Division, had established three lines in this sector, looking towards Alihuatá—one to stop Bolivian reinforcements leaving the fort, another to harass the besieged and the third, in the middle, to come and go in support of one or the other wall.

Another survivor is a Sergeant, who tells me: "the Paraguayans have entered and caught them all"... the few of us still standing attempted to run away towards the headquarters… I was dragged out of the bushes, and they asked me to surrender…everything was lost by then.|Diary 2nd Lieutenant Benigno Guzmán (Querejazu Calvo, 1981, pág.

227)On the western side a Paraguayan official formally raised the surrender of Bolivian units, giving an hour of term for the response.

It was easy to observe the reactions slow and hesitant of the Bolivian command, returning to the tactic of sending reinforcements in small quantities and where the situation was almost hopeless.

It was also observed, in the prisoners captured, tiredness and the growing demoralization that widespread in officers and soldiers Bolivians who distrusted more and more orders received from their senior commanders.