1. Ismael Montes Gamboa was a Bolivian general and political figure who served as the 26th president of Bolivia twice nonconsecutively from 1904 to 1909 and from 1913 to 1917.
20 Facts About Ismael Montes
1. 2.
Ismael Montes was the son of General Clodomiro Ismael Montes and Tomasa Gamboa.
3.
In 1878, he continued his higher studies by entering the Faculty of Law of the Universidad Mayor de San Andres, but due to the occupation by the Chilean army of the Bolivian town of Antofagasta on 14 February 1879, Ismael Montes decided to leave his studies and enlist as a private in the Murillo Regiment, then belonging to the "Bolivian Legion".
4.
In 1880, Ismael Montes' regiment was ordered to participate in the Battle of Alto de la Alianza, the last great battle between Bolivia and Chile in the War of the Pacific, in which he participated and barely survived, finishing the battle seriously wounded.
5.
Once Bolivia's participation in the war came to an end in 1880, Ismael Montes began working as an instructor in the Bolivian army.
6.
However, in 1884, Ismael Montes decided to retire from the army to continue with his law studies at the UMSA, which he had left at the beginning of the war.
7.
Ismael Montes graduated with a law degree on 12 June 1886.
8.
In 1890, at the age of twenty-nine, Ismael Montes was elected as a Deputy representing the Liberal Party his ideology collided with the prevailing conservatism of the time.
9.
Ismael Montes was elected as the head of Civil Law at the faculty of law in the UMSA.
10.
Ismael Montes attended the Assembly of Oruro, a meeting convened to discuss the future of the country.
11.
Once Pando was elected president, Ismael Montes was appointed Minister of War of Bolivia and was promoted to colonel.
12.
Ismael Montes led a military expedition to fight in the north of the country against Brazilian filibusters in the so-called Acre War.
13.
The liberal governments of Pando and Ismael Montes believed that it was time to turn the page with Chile and were convinced that the development of the railways and free transit, stipulated in the treaty, were compensations that were worth the sacrifice.
14.
Ismael Montes signed a trade and customs treaty with Peru in 1905.
15.
Ismael Montes modernized the Bolivian Army, managing to bring a French military mission from Europe.
16.
In 1913, Ismael Montes returned to Bolivia from Europe to run again for the presidency of the republic.
17.
Ismael Montes won the general elections of 1913 by a wide margin, returning to the presidency for the second nonconsecutive time.
18.
In 1920, he was still in the city of Paris, when the liberals were ousted from power by the republicans in Bolivia, which forced Ismael Montes to remain in France as an exile until 1928, the year in which he returned to assume the leadership of the Liberal Party yet again.
19.
Ismael Montes was President of Central Bank of Bolivia from 1931 to 1933.
20.
Ismael Montes was unable to witness the outcome nor the conclusion of the war.