Up for auction the weapons with which a former Uruguayan president and a deputy dueled in 1920

On April 2, 1920, a gunshot shocks Uruguayan society: Congressman Washington Beltrán dies in a duel between him and former President José Batlle y Ordóñez, who is defending himself against a traitorous journalistic editorial. These historic pistols are now up for auction.

The Central Park pitch, home of the National Football Association, served as the stage for the armed combat between political rivals that marked a milestone in Uruguayan history. Until then, the Penal Code prohibited duels, although they were practiced; Since the Beltrán-Batlle challenge, it was regulated by Law 7,253, which remained in force for 72 years, until 1992.

FROM RIVALITY TO TRAGEDY

The two shots in the match were fired from 25 paces away, which Uruguayan journalist and writer Diego Fischer said since it was the “first blood”, it would end with the first light wound.

However, the bullet fired by Batlle y Ordóñez (1856-1929), head of the Batllista sector of the Colorado Party (PC) and founder of the newspaper El Día, had a more precise trajectory than that of Beltrán (1885-1920), deputy of the rival of the PC, the National Party (PN), and founder of the newspaper El País.

“Batlle was a sniper and Beltrán was a man who had never wielded a gun, he was an expert in fencing but as Batlle was the offended, it was he who had the right to choose arms”, explains Fischer, author of the historical novel on the duel entitled “Qué Tupé”.

It was, underlines Fischer, the title of the editorial at the origin of the conflict, since Beltrán attacked the double president (1903-1907 and 1911-1915) there by qualifying him as “champion of fraud” to defend the PN against critics. launched on the side of the Batlle “colorado”.

THE PRESIDENT’S WEAPONS

With a Base price of $ 2,500, will be auctioned this Friday in Montevideo, along with other historical objects, two training pistols which, as detailed in the catalog of the auction house Zorrilla, They are of Belgian origin, Flobert brand and caliber nine millimeters.

Although, as auctioneer and manager of the auction house, Sebastián Zorrilla, there is no photographic documentation to prove it, these weapons are those recognized by Fischer as those used in the already century-old duel.

According to the author, proof of this appeared in his research for his book 11 years ago, when he was able to confirm that the head of state at the time of mourning, Baltasar Brum (1883- 1933), a close associate of Batlle, donated the pistols.

Thus, in contact with the Brum family, the author handed over, in the apartment of the now deceased grand-nephew of former president Conrado Hughes, the weapons that will be auctioned in the coming hours. and that, by collected testimonies, confirms Fischer as the same of the duel.

Another great-nephew of Brum confirmed this version and added that these guns are the same “Who were presented in the duel with Herrera”, referring to the one who kept in 1922 the “colorado” and the “white” Luis Alberto de Herrera, great-grandfather of the current Uruguayan president, Luis Lacalle Pou , without consequences for either of them.

MEDICAL TRACKS

Another important factor, says the reporter, is that Beltrán’s autopsy reports describe a “star” shaped bullet hole and the barrel of the pistols, with carved wooden handles, is octagonal.

This aspect is underlined in an article published in 2011 by forensic pathologists Guido Berro and Antonio Turnes, who, along with the case reports, made a historic autopsy of Beltrán. In her the “starry” aspect of the bullet hole has caught their attention so much that they cannot exclude “that the projectile has a peculiarity or an atypia”.

Today, a little over a century later, those guns that “fired” a law that has survived more than seven decades and whose end is due to its “anachronistic” and “strange” nature to current coexistence guidelines “will be completed.

(with information from the EFE)

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