He is most remembered for his previous role as commander in chief of the Paraguayan Army during the Chaco War, which resulted in an upset victory for Paraguay.

In his life he reached the rank of lieutenant general, being posthumously promoted to field marshal shortly after his death.

Educated as an agronomist, he joined the National Army in 1910 and spent time in Chile and in Saint Cyr's military academy in France for additional training.

In 1935, he made a victorious return to Asunción as "Hero of the Chaco War" and was awarded a lifetime pension of 1,000 gold pesos a month.

He was dismissed from the position of armed forces chief after President Eusebio Ayala was overthrown in the Febrerista Revolution by Rafael Franco, but served as Paraguay's ambassador to the United States.

For their skills was selected to attend the course staff, three-year at the École Supérieure de Guerre at Paris, where he was a disciple of General Maurice Gamelin and Marshal Foch.

He managed to stop the Bolivian advance towards the Paraguay River and destroyed powerful enemy divisions by flexibly using positional combat and guerrilla warfare techniques.

Declaring that "our nation is on the edge of horrible anarchy", he announced that democracy would be restored as soon as a workable constitutional framework could be designed.

[4] On a trip from Altos to his country residence in San Bernardino, his plane crashed in Agapuey and all those on board were killed.