The War of the Pacific (Spanish: Guerra del Pacífico), also known by multiple other names, was a war between Chile and a Bolivian–Peruvian alliance from 1879 to 1884. Fought over Chilean claims on coastal Bolivian territory in the Atacama Desert, the war ended with victory for Chile, which gained a significant amount of resource-rich territory from Peru and Bolivia. The war demonstrated Chile's military-technological superiority over its opponents at the time. The direct cause of the war was a nitrate taxation dispute between Bolivia and Chile, with Peru being drawn in due to its secret alliance with Bolivia. Some historians have pointed to deeper origins of the war, such as the interest of Chile and Peru in the nitrate business, a long-standing rivalry between Chile and Peru for regional hegemony, as well as the political and economical disparities between the stability of Chile and the volatility of Peru and Bolivia. In February 1878, Bolivia increased taxes on the Chilean mining company Compañía de Salitres y Ferrocarril de Antofagasta (CSFA), in violation of the Boundary Treaty of 1874 which established the border between both countries and prohibited tax increases for mining. Chile protested the violation of the treaty and requested international arbitration, but the Bolivian government, presided by Hilarión Daza, considered this an internal issue subject to the jurisdiction of the Bolivian courts. Chile insisted that the breach of the treaty would mean that the territorial borders denoted in it were no longer settled. Despite this, Hilarión Daza rescinded the license of the Chilean company, seized its assets and put it up for auction. On the day of the auction, 14 February 1879, Chile's armed forces occupied without resistance the Bolivian port city of Antofagasta, which was mostly inhabited by Chilean miners. War was declared between Bolivia and Chile on 1 March 1879, and between Chile and Peru on 5 April 1879. Battles were fought on the Pacific Ocean, in the Atacama Desert, the Peruvian deserts, and the mountainous interior of Peru. For the first five months, the war played out in a naval campaign, as Chile struggled to establish a marine resupply corridor for its forces in the world's driest desert. Afterwards, Chile's land campaign overcame the Bolivian and Peruvian armies. Bolivia withdrew after the Battle of Tacna, on 26 May 1880, leaving allied Peru fighting alone for most of the war. Chilean forces occupied Peru's capital Lima in January 1881. Remnants and irregulars of the Peruvian army waged a guerrilla war but could not prevent war-weary Peruvian factions from reaching a peace deal with Chile involving territorial cessions. Chile and Peru signed the Treaty of Ancón on 20 October 1883. Bolivia signed a truce with Chile in 1884. Chile acquired the Peruvian territory of Tarapacá, the disputed Bolivian department of Litoral (turning Bolivia into a landlocked country), and temporary control over the Peruvian provinces of Tacna and Arica. In 1904, Chile and Bolivia signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which established definite boundaries. The 1929 Tacna–Arica compromise gave Arica to Chile and Tacna to Peru.
Etymology
The conflict is also known as the "Saltpeter War", the "Ten Cents War" (in reference to the controversial ten-centavo tax imposed by the Bolivian government), the "Nitrate War", and the "Second Pacific War". It is not to be confused with the pre-Columbian Saltpeter War, in what is now Mexico, nor the "Guano War" as the Chincha Islands War is sometimes named. The war largely settled (or set up, depending on one's point of view) the "Tacna-Arica dispute" or "Tacna-Arica controversy", and is sometimes known by that name as well, although the details took decades to resolve. Wanu (Spanish: guano) is a Quechua word for fertilizer. Potassium nitrate (ordinary saltpeter) and sodium nitrate (Chile saltpeter) are nitrogen-containing compounds collectively referred to as salpeter, saltpetre, salitre, caliche, or nitrate. They are used as fertilizer, but have other important uses. Saltpeter is used to make gunpowder. Atacama is a Chilean region south of the Atacama Desert, which mostly coincides with the disputed Antofagasta province, known in Bolivia as Litoral.
Background
When most of South America gained independence from Spain and Portugal in the 19th century the demarcation of frontiers was uncertain, particularly in remote, thinly populated portions of the newly independent nations. Bolivia and Chile's Atacama border dispute, in the coastal territories between approximately the 23° and 24° South parallels, was just one of several longstanding border conflicts that arose in South America. Cobija, Paposo, Mejillones and the territory of Antofagasta appears on a 1793 map of Andrés Baleato and the 1799 map of the Spanish Navy as inside the jurisdiction of Chile, pointing out the Loa River as an internal limit of the Spanish Empire between Chile and Peru, leaving Charcas without sea access. The dry climate of the Peruvian and Bolivian coasts had permitted the accumulation and preservation of vast amounts of high-quality guano deposits and sodium nitrate. In the 1840s, Europeans knew the value of guano and nitrate as fertilizer and the role of saltpeter in explosives. The Atacama Desert became economically important. Bolivia, Chile, and Peru were in the area of the largest reserves of a resource demanded by the world. During the Chincha Islands War (1864–1866), Spain, under Queen Isabella II, attempted to exploit an incident involving Spanish citizens in Peru to re-establish its influence over the guano-rich Chincha Islands. Starting from the Chilean silver rush in the 1830s, the Atacama was prospected and populated by Chileans. Chilean and foreign enterprises in the region eventually extended their control to the Peruvian saltpeter works. In the Peruvian region of Tarapacá, Peruvians were a minority, behind both Chileans and Bolivians.
Boundary Treaty of 1866
Bolivia and Chile negotiated the "Boundary Treaty of 1866," or the "Treaty of Mutual Benefits," which established 24° S "from the littoral of the Pacific to the eastern limits of Chile" as the mutual boundary. Both countries also agreed to share the tax revenue from mineral exports from the territory between 23° and 25° S. The bipartite tax collecting caused discontent, and the treaty lasted for only eight years.
Secret Treaty of Alliance of 1873
In February 1873, Peru and Bolivia signed a secret treaty of alliance against Chile. The last clause kept it secret as long as both parties considered its publication unnecessary, until it was revealed in 1879. Argentina, long involved in a dispute with Chile over the Strait of Magellan and Patagonia, was secretly invited to join the pact, and in September 1873, the Argentine Chamber of Deputies approved the treaty and 6,000,000 Argentine peso for war preparations. Eventually, Argentina and Bolivia did not agree on the territories of Tarija and Chaco, and Argentina also feared an alliance of Chile with Brazil. The Argentine Senate postponed and then rejected the approval, but in 1875 and 1877, after border disputes with Chile flared up anew, Argentina sought to join the treaty. At the onset of the war, in a renewed attempt, Peru offered Argentina the Chilean territories from 24° to 27° S if Argentina adhered to the pact and fought in the war. Historians including G. Bulnes, Basadre, and Yrigoyen agree that the real intention of the treaty was to compel Chile to modify its borders according to the geopolitical interests of Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia, as Chile was militarily weak before the arrival of the Chilean ironclads Almirante Cochrane and Blanco Encalada. Chile was not informed about the pact until it learned of it, at first cursorily by a leak in the Argentine Congress in September 1873, when the Argentine Senate discussed the invitation to join the Peru-Bolivia alliance. The Peruvian mediator Antonio de Lavalle stated in his memoirs that he did not learn of it until March 1879, and Hilarion Daza was not informed of the pact until December 1878. The Peruvian historian Basadre states that one of Peru's reasons for signing the treaty was to impede a Chilean-Bolivian alliance against Peru that would have given to Bolivia the region of Arica (almost all Bolivian commerce went through Peruvian ports of Arica before the war) and transferred Antofagasta to Chile. The Chilean offers to Bolivia to change allegiance were made several times even during the war and also from the Bolivian side at least six times. On 26 December 1874, the recently built ironclad Cochrane arrived in Valparaíso and remained in Chile until the completion of the Blanco Encalada. That threw the balance of power in the South Pacific toward Chile. Historians disagree on how to interpret the treaty. Some Peruvian and Bolivian historians assess it as rightful, defensive, circumstantial, and known by Chile from the very onset. Conversely, some Chilean historians assess the treaty as aggressive against Chile, causing the war, designed to take control by Peru of the Bolivian nitrate and hidden from Chile. The reasons for its secrecy, its invitation to Argentina to join the pact, and Peru's refusal to remain neutral are still discussed.
Boundary Treaty of 1874
In 1874, Chile and Bolivia replaced the 1866 boundary treaty by keeping the boundary at 24° S but granting Bolivia the authority to collect all tax revenue between 23° and 24° S. To compensate for the relinquishment of its rights, Chile received a 25-year guarantee against tax increases on Chilean commercial interests and their exports. Article 4 explicitly forbade tax increases on Chilean enterprises for 25 years:
The duties of exportation that may be levied on minerals exploited in the zone referred to in the preceding articles shall not exceed those now in force, and Chilean citizens, industry, and capital shall not be subjected to any other contributions what ever except those now existing. The stipulations in this article shall last for twenty-five years. All disputes arising under the treaty would be settled by arbitration.
Causes of war
The historian William F. Sater gives several possible and compatible reasons for the war. He considers the causes to be domestic, economic, and geopolitical. Several authors agree with them, but others only partially support his arguments. Some historians argue that Chile was devastated by the economic crisis of the 1870s and was looking for a replacement for its silver, copper and wheat exports. It has been argued that the economic situation and the view of new wealth in nitrate were the true reasons for the Chilean elite to go to war against Peru and Bolivia. The holder of the Chilean nitrate companies, according to Sater, "bulldozed" Chilean President Aníbal Pinto into declaring war to protect the owner of the Compañía de Salitres y Ferrocarril de Antofagasta (CSFA) and then to seize Bolivia's and Peru's salitreras (saltpeter works). Several members of the Chilean government were shareholders of CSFA, and they are believed to have hired the services of one of the country's newspapers to push their case. Another US American historian, David Healy, rejects that thesis, and Fredrick B. Pike calls the allegation "absurd." The economic development that accompanied and followed the war was so remarkable that Marxist writers feel justified in alleging that Chile's great military adventure was instigated by self-seeking capitalists to bring their country out of the business stagnation that had begun in 1878 since the war provided Chile with the economic means to come of age. Sater states that that interpretation overlooks certain important facts. The Chilean investors in Bolivia correctly feared that Daza, the Bolivian dictator, would use the war as an excuse to expropriate their investments. Among them were Melchor de Concha y Toro, the politically powerful president of Chile's Camara de Diputados, Jerónimo Urmeneta, and Lorenzo Claro, a Chilean founder of the Banco de Bolivia and a prominent member of the National Party. A Santiago newspaper claimed that Melchor de Concha y Toro offered President Pinto 2,000,000 Chilean pesos to end the dispute and to return to the 1874 border. "In other words," writes W. Sater, "there were as many powerful interests opposed to helping the Compañía de Salitres as there were those seeking to aid the corporation." Also, B. Farcau objects to the argument: "On the other hand, the sorry state of the Chilean armed forces at the outbreak of the war, as will be discussed in the following chapter, hardly supports a theory of conscious, premeditated aggression." Sater cites other sources that state that the true causes of the conflict were not economic but geopolitical, a struggle for control of the southeastern portion of the Pacific Ocean. In 1836 the Peruvian government tried to monopolize commerce in the South Pacific by rewarding ships that sailed directly to Callao, to the detriment of Valparaíso. Peru tried to impede the agreement that had been reached between Spain and Chile to free its new warships built and embargoed in Britain during the Chincha Islands War. Sater cites Germany's minister in Chile, who argued that the war with Peru and Bolivia would "have erupted sooner or later, [and] on any pretext." He considered that Bolivia and Peru had developed a "bitter envy" against Chile and its material progress and good government. Frederik B. Pike states: "The fundamental cause for the eruption of hostilities was the mounting power and prestige and the economic and political stability of Chile, on one hand, and the weakness and the political and economic deterioration of Bolivia, on the other.... The war—and its outcome—was as inevitable as the 1846—1848 conflict between the United States and Mexico. In both instances, a relatively well-governed, energetic, and economically expanding nation had been irresistibly tempted by neighboring territories that were underdeveloped, malgoverned, and sparsely occupied." Another reason, according to Sater, was Peru's desire to monopolize and appropriate the nitrate works to strengthen its nitrate monopoly, which required the Bolivian and Chilean salitreras to be controlled by Peru. As unenviable as Chile’s situation was in the 1870s, that of Peru was much worse. The 1870s was for Peru's economy "a decade of crisis and change". Nitrate extraction rose while guano exports, the source of substantial revenue for Peru, declined from 575,000 tons in 1869 to less than 350,000 tons in 1873, and the Chincha Islands and other guano islands were depleted or nearly so. William Edmundson writes in A History of the British Presence in Chile, "Peru has its own reasons to enter the dispute. Rory Miller (1993) argues that the depletion of guano resources and poor management of the economy in Peru had provoked a crisis. This has caused Peru to default on its external debt in 1876.... In that year [1875] the Peruvian government decided to procure a loan of seven millions pounds of which four millions pounds were earmarked to purchase privately owned oficinas [salitreras]... and Peru defaulted again in 1877." To increase guano revenue, Peru created a monopoly on nitrate commerce in 1875. Its aims were to increase prices, curb exports and to impede competition, but most larger nitrate firms opposed the monopoly on sales of nitrate. When they were unsuccessful, Peru in 1876 began to expropriate nitrate producers and to buy nitrate concessions such as that of Henry Meiggs in Bolivia ("Toco", south of the Loa River). However, the CSFA was too expensive to be purchased. As Peruvian historian Alejandro Reyes states, the Bolivian salitreras needed to be controlled, which resulted in the internationalization of the conflict since they were owned by Chilean and European merchants. As the Chilean company was to be auctioned on 14 February 1879, in Antofagasta, it was considered that the Peruvian consul would be the highest bidder. However, some sources, according to Sater, see the declarations of war between Chile and Peru as a product of popular domestic forces. The Peruvian President had to declare war to keep his position. Sater cites the British minister in Lima, Spencer St. John: "the rival parties may try to make political capital out of jealousy for the national honor, and His Excellency [Peruvian President Prado] may be forced to give way to the popular sentiment." Chilean President Pinto was under similar pressures. Bruce Farcau considers that to be the main cause for the war outbreak: "The argument that the attitude of the peoples of the region was just ripe for war seems best to fit the bill."
Crisis
=== Ten Cents' Tax === License of 27 November 1873 Beginning in 1866, the Chilean entrepreneurs José Santos Ossa and Francisco Puelma exploited deposits of sodium nitrate in Bolivian territory (the salitreras named "Las Salinas" and "Carmen Alto", 122 kilometres (76 mi) and 128 kilometres (80 mi) from Antofagasta, respectively) and secured concessions from Bolivian President Mariano Melgarejo. In 1868, a company named Compañía Melbourne Clark was established in Valparaíso, Chile, with 34% British capital provided by Antony Gibbs & Sons of London, which also held shares of salitreras in Peru. Its shareholders included a number of leading Chilean politicians. The company obtained a license from the Melgarejo administration to construct a railroad from Antofagasta to Salinas, and was renamed Compañía de Salitres y Ferrocarril de Antofagasta (CSFA). In 1871, a new Bolivian government canceled all contracts signed by Melgarejo, but on 22 November 1872, a Bolivian decree allowed the government to renegotiate the contracts. On 27 November 1873, CSFA obtained a license from the new administration in Bolivia to exploit saltpeter without duty for 15 years, but a dispute arose regarding whether the original 1872 decree, under which the 1873 license was issued, required the authorization of the Bolivian Congress. Some lawyers placed emphasis on con cargo a dar cuenta a la próxima legislatura (Spanish for: "to be considered during the next legislative session [of the parliament]"), but others on sólo en los casos de no avenimiento (Spanish for "only in cases that no settlement [is reached]").
Peruvian monopoly of saltpeter
In 1873, the Peruvian government dictated the Ley del estanco del salitre, which limited the saltpeter production and authorized the government to purchase the whole production to a fixed price. However, the plan failed, and the law was repealed. In 1875, the Peruvian government expropriated the salitreras of Tarapacá to create a monopoly in guano and nitrate, and in 1876, Antony Gibbs & Sons became the consignee of the nitrate trade for the Peruvian government. President Mariano Ignacio Prado was "determined to complete the monopoly," and in 1876, Peru bought the nitrate licenses for "El Toco" auctioned by a Bolivian decree of 13 January 1876. However, the Chilean company remained the most serious competitor and clearly weakened Peru's monopoly. President Pardo, Prado's predecessor, had urged Gibbs to secure the monopoly by limiting the CSFA's output, and Henry Gibbs had warned the CSFA's board of directors in a letter on 16 April 1878, that its refusal to limit its output would bring administrative trouble with Peru and Bolivia "as it is made more and more to the interest of a neighboring Government that they should be so." Gibbs made repeated unsuccessful efforts in 1876 and 1877 to persuade Edwards, the Chilean majority shareholder, to accept a limit to its production. The historian Ronald Bruce St. John in Foreign Policy of Peru states, "Although persuasive evidence linking Peru to either the ten-centavo tax or Bolivia's decision to confiscate Chilean holdings in Antofagasta never surfaced, it must be recognized that Peruvian interests had deep-seated economical and political reasons for going to war."
Tax and Chilean refusal In 1875, the city of Antofagasta had attempted to impose a 3 cents tax on the CSFA, but the Bolivian State Council (Consejo de Estado), headed by Serapio Reyes Ortiz, who would be Minister of Foreign Affairs during the crisis, rejected the tax because it violated the license of 1873 and the Boundary Treaty of 1874. On 14 February 1878, the National Congress of Bolivia and the National Constituent Assembly approved the 1873 license if the company paid a 10 cents per quintal tax, but the company objected by citing the 1874 treaty that the increased payments were illegal and demanded an intervention from the Chilean government. The CSFA's directory board perceived the tax as a Peruvian move to displace Chileans from the nitrate production, as had occurred in Tarapacá in 1875 when the Peruvian government expropriated the salitreras. Having surrendered its claim to the disputed territories in return for a Bolivian promise to avoid increasing the tax, Chile claimed that the treaty did not allow for such a tax hike. Bolivia suspended the tax in April 1878. In November, Chile proposed mediation and cautioned that Daza's refusal to cancel the tax would force Chile to declare null the 1874 treaty. In December 1878, Bolivia, counting on its military alliance with Peru, challenged Chile, stated the tax was unrelated to the treaty and that the claim of the CSFA should be addressed in Bolivian courts, and revived the tax. When the company refused to pay the tax, Bolivia confiscated its property on 11 February and threatened to sell it on 14 February to liquidate the company's debt.
=== Chilean invasion of Antofagasta === In December 1878, Chile had dispatched a warship to the area. On 6 February, the Bolivian government nullified the CSFA's exploitation license and confiscated the property. The news reached Valparaíso on 11 February and so the Chilean government decided on the occupation of the region of Antofagasta south of 23° South. On the day of the planned auction, 200 Chilean soldiers arrived by ship at the port city of Antofagasta and seized it without resistance. The occupying forces received widespread support from the local population, 93–95% of which was Chilean. The Bolivian territory between 23° South and the Loa River, the border with Peru, remained unoccupied by Chilean forces almost one month after the Bolivian declaration of war. On 21 March, Cobija and then Calama, Tocopilla, and other hamlets were occupied. The Chilean government asked the Bolivian office-holders to remain in office, but they refused.
Peruvian mediation and Bolivian declaration of war
On 22 February, Peru sent a diplomatic team headed by José Antonio de Lavalle to Santiago to act as a mediator between the Chilean and the Bolivian governments. Peru meanwhile ordered its fleet and army to prepare for war. De Lavalle arrived in Valparaíso on 4 March. On 27 February, Daza had made a public manifesto to inform the Bolivians on the occupation of Antofagasta and to call for patriotic support. The same day, the Bolivian legislature authorized a formal declaration of war upon Chile although it was not immediately announced. On 1 March, Daza issued instead a decree to prohibit all commerce and communications with Chile "while the state-of-war provoked upon Bolivia lasts." It provided Chileans ten days to leave Bolivian territory unless they were gravely ill or handicapped and embargoed Chilean furniture, property, and mining produce; allowed Chilean mining companies to continue operating under a government-appointed administrator; and provided all embargoes as temporary "unless the hostilities exercised by Chilean forces requires an energetic retaliation from Bolivia." In Santiago, Lavalle asked for Chile's withdrawal from Antofagasta to transfer the province to a tripartite administration of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru without Bolivia guaranteeing to end the embargo or to cancel the new tax. On 14 March, in a meeting with foreign powers in Lima, Bolivia announced that a state of war existed with Chile. The declaration was aimed to impede further Chilean arms purchases in Europe and to scuttle the Peruvian mediation in Chile. Bolivia called on Peru to activate the treaty of alliance arguing that Chile's invasion was a casus foederis. Also on 14 March, Alejandro Fierro, Chile's minister of foreign affairs, sent a telegram to Chile's representative in Lima, Joaquin Godoy, to request the immediate neutrality of the Peruvian government. On March 17, Godoy formally presented the Chilean proposal in a meeting with Peruvian President Prado. On 21 March, Godoy telegraphed the Chilean government on the secret treaty between Peru and Bolivia, which had been revealed to him by Peruvian President Prado. On 23 March, on their way to occupy Calama, 554 Chilean troops and cavalry defeated 135 Bolivian soldiers and civilians, who were dug in at two destroyed bridges next to the Topáter ford. The Battle of Topáter was the first battle of the war. When the Chilean government asked Lavalle directly and officially whether a defensive alliance existed that committed Peru to assist Bolivia in a war with Chile and whether Lima planned to honor the agreement, Lavalle could prevaricate no longer and answered yes to both. Chilean President Pinto sought and received legislative approval to declare war, which he did on 5 April 1879. Peru responded on 6 April, when Prado declared the casus foederis.
War
Forces
Historians agree that the belligerents were not prepared for the war financially or militarily. None of the three nations had a General Staff, medical corps, or military logistics and their warships were in a deplorable state. In Chile, for example, the military contingent had been reduced continuously from 3,776 (by 1867) to 2,400 (by 1879) men, and no military unit was deployed north of Valparaíso, 1700 km south of Iquique. By the end of the war, 53% of chief engineers serving in Chilean warships were foreigners. The government of Peru was again in default of payment, and in Bolivia, famine spread over the country. According to William Sater, Chile and Peru enlisted temporarily 2% of the male population but Bolivia only 1%. After the Battle of Tacna, both of the Allied armies were disbanded and had to be formed again.
The Allied forces, at first glance, had some advantages over the Chilean forces. Their population and armies doubled the Chileans in numbers, and the Peruvian port of Callao's powerful artillery was impregnable for the Chilean navy and a secure haven for the Peruvian navy. In Callao, an English company offered the service of a floating dock for ships up to 3000 tonnes, and the Peruvian government used it to repair their ships at the outset of the war. Those are some reasons that led the international press to expect a Chilean defeat as the war started. Moreover, the ambivalent Argentine position and the ongoing Mapuche conflict overshadowed the Chilean perspective. Jorge Basadre commented on the public opinion in Peru and Bolivia: "They ignored the real power of Chile and the horrors of war, and simple minded people believed that the allies would win the war because they together were bigger than Chile."
However, other observers made a more in-depth analysis, which showed Chilean political and military advantages. Chile had a stable political system since 1833 that had developed and strengthened its institutions. The Chilean army and the navy had educated officers, soldiers with professional experience in the Mapuche conflict, and uniformly modern arms. Almost all Chilean soldiers were armed with Comblain or Gras rifles. The Chilean navy also possessed two new ironclads, which were invincible against the older Peruvian warships. Although there was interference between military and government over policy during the war, the primacy of the government was never questioned. The Chilean supply line from Europe through the Magellan Strait was only once threatened unsuccessfully by the Peruvian navy. The Allied armies were heavily involved in domestic politics and neglected their military duties, and poor planning and administration caused them to buy different rifles with different calibers. That hampered the instruction of conscripts, the maintenance of arms, and the supply of ammunition. The Peruvian navy warships manned before the war by Chilean sailors had to be replaced by foreign crews when the war began. Bolivia had no navy. The Allied armies had nothing comparable to the Chilean cavalry and artillery.
Struggle for sea control
Its few roads and railroad lines made the nearly waterless and largely unpopulated Atacama Desert difficult to occupy. From the beginning, naval superiority was critical. Bolivia had no navy and so on 26 March 1879, Hilarión Daza formally offered letters of marque to any ships willing to fight for Bolivia. The Armada de Chile and the Marina de Guerra del Perú fought the naval battles. Early on, Chile blockaded the Peruvian port of Iquique on 5 April. In the Battle of Iquique, on 21 May 1879, the Peruvian ironclad Huáscar engaged and sank the wooden Esmeralda. Meanwhile, during the Battle of Punta Gruesa, the Peruvian ironclad Independencia struck a submerged rock and sank in the shallow waters near Punta Gruesa while chasing the schooner Covadonga. Peru broke the blockade of Iquique, and Chile lost the old Esmeralda, but the loss of the Independencia cost Peru 40% of its naval offensive power. It also made a strong impression upon military leaders in Argentina, and the possibility of Argentina's intervention in the war became far more remote. Despite being outnumbered, the Peruvian monitor Huáscar held off the Chilean Navy for six months and upheld Peru's morale during the early stages of the conflict. The capture of the steamship Rímac on 23 July 1879, carrying a cavalry regiment (the Carabineros de Yungay) was the Chilean Army's largest loss until then. That led to the resignation of Contraalmirante (Rear Admiral) Juan Williams Rebolledo, the chief of the Chilean Navy, on 17 August. Commodore Galvarino Riveros Cárdenas replaced him and devised a plan to catch the Huáscar. Meanwhile, the Peruvian navy pursued other actions, particularly in August 1879 when the Unión unsuccessfully raided Punta Arenas, near the Strait of Magellan, in an attempt to capture the British merchant ship Gleneg, which was transporting weapons and supplies to Chile.
The Battle of Angamos proved decisive on 8 October 1879, and Peru was reduced almost exclusively to land forces. In the battle, the Chilean Navy captured the Huáscar after several hours of fierce fighting, even though her surviving crewmen sought to scuttle her. The Chilean Navy was thereafter free to carry troops for the invasion of Peru and to provide fire support for amphibious assault and other troops operating in the conflict areas. Chilean warships also had to impose a naval blockade of Peruvian ports and end the smuggling of arms from Panama into Peru via the Pacific. After the battle, despite the loss of both of Peru's main ships, the Peruvians used simple and ingenious ruses to sink two important Chilean ships, the Loa (July 1880) and the Covadonga (August 1880), but its remaining vessels were locked in Callao during its long blockade by the Chileans. On the other hand, the Chilean Navy captured the ship Pilcomayo in November 1879 and the torpedo boat Alay in December 1880. When Lima fell after the Battles of San Juan and Miraflores, the Peruvian naval officers scuttled their remaining fleet to prevent its capture by the Chilean forces. During the Sierra campaign, Chilean ships were dedicated to guarding the Peruvian coast and transporting military detachments and war material for land operations. In November 1883, during the final phase of the war, the Chilean military command sent the Chilean torpedo boat Colo Colo to Lake Titicaca, via railroad, from Mollendo to Puno to control the lake. The presence of the torpedo boat prevented communications through this route and its use for military purposes, and the Peruvian vessels that had taken refuge in the vicinity surrendered to the Chileans. The deployment of the torpedo boat also induced the Bolivian government to agree to a peace treaty with Chile in 1884.
Land war
After the Battle of Angamos, once Chile achieved naval supremacy, the government had to decide where to strike. The options were Tarapacá, Moquegua or directly Lima. Because of its proximity to Chile and the capture of the Peruvian Salitreras, Chile decided to occupy the Peruvian province of Tarapacá first. Arica and Iquique were isolated and separated by the Atacama Desert; since the capture of the Huáscar in October 1879, neither port had naval protection needed to be adequately supplied by sea. Without any communication or withdrawal lines, the area was essentially cut off from the rest of Peru. After the loss of its naval capabilities, Peru had the option to withdraw to central Peru to strengthen its army around Lima until the re-establishment of a naval balance or to build up new alliances, as hinted by the Chilean historian Wilhelm Ekdahl. However, Jorge Basadre assumes that it would have been "striking and humiliating" to abandon Tarapacá, the source of Peru's wealth. On 30 April 1879, after 13 days of marching, 4,500 Bolivian soldiers, commanded by Daza, arrived in Tacna, a town 100 km (60 mi) north of Arica. The Bolivians had come to join the Peruvian forces, commanded by Juan Buendia. The Allied forces were deployed to the places that a Chilean landing could be expected; the Iquique-Pisagua or Arica-Tacna regions. There were reserves stationed at Arequipa, farther north in Peru, under Lizardo Montero, as well as in southern Bolivia, under Narciso Campero The reserves were to be deployed to the coast after a landing but failed to arrive.
The land war can be seen as four Chilean military campaigns that successively occupied Tarapacá, Arica-Tacna, and Lima and a final campaign that ended the Peruvian resistance in the sierra. The occupation of Arequipa and Puno at the end of the war saw little military action.
Tarapacá Campaign
The Campaign of Tarapacá began on November 2, 1879, when nine steam transporters escorted by half of the Chilean Navy transported 9,500 men and more than 850 animals to Pisagua, some 500 kilometres (310 mi) north of Antofagasta. After neutralizing the coastal batteries, the Chileans landed and attacked beach defenses in Pisagua. In the event of a Chilean landing, the Allied forces planned to counterattack the Chilean forces in a pincer movement involving advances from the north (Daza's forces coming from Arica) and from the south (Buendia's forces coming from Iquique). Although Peruvian forces marched northwards as planned after the fall of Pisagua, Daza, coming from Arica, decided in Camarones (44 km from Pisagua) to give up his part of the counterattack and return to Arica. The Chileans meanwhile marched towards Iquique and, on 19 November 1879, defeated the Allied troops without Daza's men gathered in Agua Santa in the Battle of San Francisco and Dolores. Disbanded Bolivian forces there and the southern force retreated to Oruro, and the Peruvians fell back to Tiliviche. The Chilean army captured Iquique (80 km/50 mi south of Pisagua) without resistance. Some of the Peruvian forces that had been defeated at San Francisco retreated on Tarapacá, a little town with same name as the province, where they combined with Peruvian troops who withdrew to Tarapacá directly from Iquique.
A detachment of Chilean soldiers, with cavalry and artillery, was sent to face the Peruvian forces in Tarapacá. Both sides clashed on 27 November in the Battle of Tarapacá, and the Chilean forces were defeated, but the Peruvian forces, without lines of communication with their supply bases in Peru or Bolivia, could not maintain their occupation of the territory. Consequently, the Peruvians retreated north through harsh desert terrain to Arica and lost many troops during their withdrawal. Bruce W. Farcau comments that, "The province of Tarapacá was lost along with a population of 200,000, nearly one tenth of the Peruvian total, and an annual gross income of £28 million in nitrate production, virtually all of the country's export earnings." The victory afforded Santiago an economic boon and a potential diplomatic asset.
==== Domestic policies until the fall of Iquique ==== The Rimac’s capture, the sinking of the Esmeralda, and the passiveness of the Chilean fleet showed that the command of the navy was unprepared for the war, and the army also had trouble with the logistics, medical service, and command. Public discontent with poor decisions led to riots, and the government had to replace the "sclerotics" chief of the navy Juan Williams Rebolledo (by Galvarino Riveros), and the Chief of the army Justo Arteaga (by Erasmo Escala). After Tarapacá, the army was reorganized into divisions. Chile's foreign policy tried to separate Bolivia from Peru. Gonzalo Bulnes writes: "The target of the política boliviana was the same as before, to seize Tacna and Arica for Bolivia and put Bolivia as a buffer state between Peru and Chile, on the assumption that Peru would accept the Chilean peace conditions. The initiated called such policy 'to clear up Bolivia.'" Moreover, the Chilean government had to find a border agreement with Argentina to avoid war. After the occupation of the salpeter and guano deposits, the Chilean government restituted the oficinas salitreras, which had been nationalized by Peru, to the owner of the certificate of debt. The alternative of a Chilean State Company of Salpeter was discarded as too onerous for a government waging war and lacking experienced personnel, and the creditors pressed the issue. In 1879, Chile began to exact a tax of 40 cents per "quintal métrico" (100 kg), increasing to $1.60 in 1880. As provided by the secret treaty, the allies agreed in the Protocol of Subsidies for Bolivia to bear the costs of the war. The agreement, which regulated the tax income for many years, caused resentments and fears in Bolivia, whose deployment of forces to Tacna was seen as helping Peru. Also, Bolivia knew that its army would be sent not to free the occupied region of Bolivia but to protect Peru. As Daza and his officers came to Tacna and Arica, they failed to see the expected Peruvian military strength and understood that their position of power in Bolivia was threatened by a defeat of the Allies. The Bolivian historian Querejazu suggests that Daza successfully used the Chilean offer of Tacna and Arica for Bolivia to exert pressure on Peru to get a more favorable Protocol of Subsidies. The reason that Daza abandoned the Peruvian forces in Iquique and turned back to Arica just before the Battle of San Francisco is uncertain. Some historians say that he wanted to keep the "Regimiento Colorados" untouched since the force secured his political power in Bolivia. Daza later stated that his officers refused to continue the march through the desert, but his shameful withdrawal accelerated his downfall, and he was succeeded by Narciso Campero. In the new government, there was a strong tendency to accept the Chilean offer of Tacna and Arica, but it was eventually refused. Bolivia signed the creation of the United States of Peru and Bolivia, a political fantasy without any practical consequences. Bolivia helped Peru with money and weapons, but the Bolivian army never again intervened in the war. In Peru, the political situation was complicated. President Prado had declared war on Chile for longstanding economical and political reasons but without the funds or international credit to finance the war. He turned over the administration of the state to Vice President Luis La Puerta de Mendoza to assume for himself the command of the army. Because of the Chilean blockade, Peru could not export revenuemaking goods via its ports. As a consequence, public revenue was half of what had been expected, and spending tripled. The Peruvian government in 1879 experienced several political crises and seven ministers of finance. General Buendía, who led the defeated allied troops in Iquique, and More, chief of the sunken warship Independence, were both put on trial but were eventually acquitted. The Peruvian government was confronted with widespread rioting in Lima because of its failures. On 18 December 1879, as the fall of Iquique became known in Peru, Prado went from Callao to Panama, allegedly with the duty to oversee the purchase of new arms and warships for the nation. In a statement for the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio, he turned over the command of the country to Vice President Luis La Puerta de Mendoza. History has condemned his departure as a desertion. Nicolás de Piérola overthrew Puerta's government and took power on 23 December 1879. Piérola has been criticised because of his sectarianism, frivolous investment, bombastic decrees, and lack of control in the budget, but it must be said that he put forth an enormous effort to obtain new funds and to mobilize the country for the war. Basadre considered his work an act of heroism, abnegation in a country invaded, politically divided, militarily battered, and economically bloodless.
Campaign of Tacna and Arica
Meanwhile, Chile continued its advances in the Tacna and Arica Campaign. On 28 November, ten days after the Battle of San Francisco, Chile declared the formal blockade of Arica. On 31 December, a Chilean force of 600 men carried out an amphibious raid at Ilo as a reconnaissance in force, to the north of Tacna and withdrew the same day.