War of the Pacific (1879-1884)

Origin

After independence, the new States of South America were marked by an interior political instability, doubled of an instability in their relations which caused several wars.

Important wars marked the XIXe century in South America. Their origin, the expansionism of the newcomers on the regional scene and in particular that of two countries decided to extend costs that costs, Chile and Brazil.

The area in the middle of the stakes: the North of Chile. To two recovery, Chile, decided to push back its borders of north, attacked Peru and Bolivia: first once in 1836-1839, one second time between 1879-1883 at the time of the war known as of the Pacific. The first conflict sought to prevent the meeting of Peru and Bolivia within a confederation; the second visa to annex an area rich in salpetre, substance which was useful at the time with manufacture of the explosives. At the conclusion of this war of the Pacific, Chile, pushed by the English who supported his expansionism in the Pacific as they supported the expansionism Argentinian, conquered 200,000 km ² of which 125,000 with the detriment of Bolivia which lost its maritime frontage then and was found wedged in the Andes.

During the former decades, the desert of Atacama had acquired a great economic value thanks to the discovery of invaluable layers of Guano and thereafter of Salpêtre.

The Bolivian and Chilean historians are in disagreement to know if the territory of Charcas, which depended initially on the Viceroyalty of the Peru then of that of the Plata, had an access to the sea. Being pressed on various documents, the Bolivian ones claimed it with insistence while the Chilean ones disputed it. Simón Bolívar, by creating the country which bears its name, gave him access to the sea. Nevertheless most of the economic exploitation of this area had been concluded by Chilean investors under very advantageous conditions.

The Bolivia reacts, tardily and with awkwardness, with respect to the advantages which it itself had granted the Chilean investors and, while trying to increase the taxes, it met a strong resistance among the Chilean ones and a strong reaction of the government of Santiago. In this diplomatic crisis the Peru intervened by sending a plenipotentiary ambassador to Santiago to try to calm the play, but according to the press of the time, the Chile had already chosen the war, which was not a secrecy for anybody.

The Bolivian government worsened the dispute while deciding to liquidate the Chilean companies which refused to pay the tax. The war burst when the Chile invades, in answer, the port of Antofagasta. The Bolivia declared in its turn the war and the Peru, by a reciprocal treaty of defense with the Bolivian ones entered in its turn the conflict.

The presidents of the time were Aníbal Pinto (Chile), Hilarión Daza (Bolivia) and Mariano Ignacio Prado (Peru).

The history of the war still makes the subject of debate between the various versions which defend the attitude of the Chile, of the Bolivia or the Peru. We will try to remain most objective possible in the explanations which follow.

The war

At the beginning of the war, it was obvious, that for launching a military attack on a ground as difficult as the desert, it was initially necessary to control the sea. The Bolivian ones did not have military navy. The Peruvians had four armor-plated frigates, the Indépendance , the Manco Capac , the Atahualpa and the Huascar and the Chilean ones, the armor-plated frigates Cochrane and Blanco Encalada . The calculation of the terrestrial forces gave a great numerical superiority to the Peru and the Bolivia, but the Chile had prepared better with a war of this kind. It had a more modern artillery and better rifles that the Peruvians. The Bolivia was not prepared for a war on the coast, for this reason, in this alliance the principal effort fell on the Peru.

It is thus the February 14th 1879 which unload the Chiliennes armed forces with the port of Antofagasta. The port city quickly will be taken and controlled by the Chilean ones. They oblige Zapata to give up the city. Among the few 6000 inhabitants, 5000 are Chiliens, 600 are Bolivian and 400 are of nationality varied. Two days afterwards, the February 16th, the mining center of Caracols is taken by Chile.

There is no line of telegraph in Bolivia, it is thus impossible to quickly prevent the authorities which Chile entered in war. It is thanks to the steamer the Amazonas arrived the evening of the February 19th at Tacna, in Peru which information can be transmitted. The Bolivian consul Manual Granier writes a letter with the president then. This one will take 5 days to arrive and reached La Paz the February 25th thanks to Gregorio Colloque.

The Peruvian port of Iquique was blocked by part of the Chilean armada. At the time of the naval Action of Iquique , the Huascar , ordered by Miguel Grau Seminario managed to run an old man but emblematic Chilean boat, Esmeralda , defended by its captain Arturo Prat. Independencia , the best boat Peruvian launched out on the Covadonga , whose captain, Carlos Condell, brought it towards not very major zones and ruined it Punta Gruesa. The result of the day was in favor of the Chile, which lost a boat out of wooden, but succeeds in running best the armoured Peruvian one. The result of the combat of Iquique and Punta Gruesa had an important repercussion in the public opinion of the two countries. In spite of his new naval inferiority, the captain of the Huascar maintained under pressure the Chilean fleet for several months. The decisive combat took place with Angamos, vis-a-vis the coasts then Bolivian where the Huascar was finally taken by Chilean the in October 1879. During this battle, Grau and several officers and sailors perished. Having obtained the naval superiority, the Chilean ones launched a series of military operations against the Bolivian ones and the Peruvians in the desert of Atacama. The battles of Pisagua, Tacna, Tarapacá and Arica (taken of Morro de Arica) definitively gave the superiority to Chilean in 1880. The Bolivian ones withdrew war and the Chilean ones continued the fight against the Peru. In 1881, the Chilean troops directed by the general Manuel Baquedano entered Lima after the battles of Chorrilos and Miraflores (cities located at the south of the city). At the time of this last battle, it itself was the population, which defended, without success, the city. Lima, aristocratic city, lived disconnected from the remainder of Peru and underestimated the gravity of the conflict, which contributed to destabilize the political community and prevented it from preparing effectively to face the Chilean ones in the south of the city.

The town of Lima was put at bag by the victorious army and the population was seen imposing a military occupation. President Piérola left the city, to organize defense with the outside, while leaving with the Montero orders which was in its turn replaced by a civil government directed by García Calderón and which refused to ratify the abandonment of the Peruvian province of Tarapacá. In impossibility of signing peace, Baquedano establishes its general headquarter in Lima and directed the engagements against Peruvian resistance in the Sierra like in the city itself.

The French rear-admiral Abel Bergasse Dupetit-Thouars, charged in 1880 to go to pacify the Marchionesses, was at the time of his return voyage to Lima, in Peru, at the moment when the Chilean troops were going to seize the city. After the battle of Miraflores it prevented the destruction and the plundering of Lima while threatening to engage and destroy the Chilean navy with a multinational force under its order. By its firm and decided attitude, it prevented excesses and saved this capital of a bloody destruction.

An important avenue of Lima bears its name today. Parallel with the avenue Arequipa, it crosses the districts of San Isidro, Miraflores, Lince and Cercado of Lima.

Peruvian colonel Andrés Cáceres organized defense between the civil population of the sierra and a war of Guérilla. Nevertheless, after the battle of Huamachuco where the Chile obtained the victory over Cáceres, a group of Peruvian leaders believed convenient to finish the war by imposing the general Miguel Iglesias like new president and by signing the peace treaty with the Chile and that although Cáceres was reorganizing its troops. This event will be after the war, at the origin of the civil war between Cáceres and Iglesias.

The war ended the October 20th 1883 by the Treaty of Ancón according to which the province of Tarapacá passed under Chilean sovereignty definitively, and Arica and Tacna temporarily until the behavior on a referendum which was to be organized at the end of ten years and which were to decide on their future. The referendum was pushed back during decades by the successive Chilean governments and never took place. Finally, and thanks to the intervention of the president of the the United States, Herbert C. Hoover, Tacna were returned to the Peru in 1929 by the signature of a new treaty the June 3rd.

Peace between the Chile and the Bolivia was signed in 1904. This peace treaty remained despite everything source of diplomatic tensions between the two countries during all the 20th century since the Bolivia had lost any access to the Pacific Ocean.

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