From the Atacama to the Andes: Battles of the War of the Pacific 1879-1883

By Alan Curtis

With the break up of the Spanish empire in South America, the continent split into nine independent states with often ill-defined boundaries. One of these was that between Bolivia and Chile, which were separated by the Atacama Desert, tone of the driest regions in the world. When it was realized that the area contained nitrates that the world needed for explosives and fertilizer the scene was set for the inevitable clash.

When war broke out in February 1879, both sides found themselves unprepared for war. Rapid armament followed as the Peruvians were dragged into the conflict in support of their Bolivian allies. Initially there was a tiresome naval war of blockade and guerre de course. Two naval actions decided the naval campaign in favor of the Chileans who then proceeded to use their naval power to attack the Allies’ isolated armies and capture Lima two years after war had broken out. Fighting then developed into a cruel and ruthless guerrilla war in the Andes, sometimes even pitting Peruvian against Peruvian, before the Peruvians finally concede defeat.

The war was notable in the West for fights involving ironclads, particularly the Battle of Angamos, which saw the only time ironclads were pitted against each other between the Battle of Lissa and the Battle of the Yalu River. The war helped formulate Captain Mahan’s thoughts in “The Influence of Sea Power upon History”.

The land war was more or less ignored abroad, although it included some of the biggest battles ever fought on the continent, using all the latest technology, including breech loading rifles and cannons and machine guns. The armies on both sides initially lacked experience and training as well as modern equipment. The Bolivian Army started the war with 806 officers and only 1369 other ranks! In the end the Chileans won because of their more stable government, better financial situation and their control of the sea, due to their two superior ironclads.

From the Atacama to the Andes tells the brutal struggle between two sides to control the wealth of the Atacama and for retention of Bolivia’s coast. The result was that Chile gained the mineral resources of the “New North” and Bolivia became the second landlocked country on the continent, paving the way for the even more catastrophic Chaco War 50 years later.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helion and Company
• Release date: Apr 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781804516027

Book preview

Introduction

The War of the Pacific was a conflict that was fought between Chile and her two neighbours, Peru and Bolivia, over the second driest place in the world, the Atacama Desert; only the Dry Valleys of the Antarctic have less precipitation. It started in February 1879 and dragged on until Bolivia agreed to a truce in 1884, although the war had effectively finished in October 1883 when Peru and Chile signed the Treaty of Ancon. In between, it became the second biggest war in South America, outdone in size and carnage only by the War of the Triple Alliance which had finished eight years earlier. Usually known as the Guerra del Pacifico in Spanish, it is variously known in English as the Pacific War, War of the Pacific, the Nitrate War, the Guano War, and the Ten Cents War.

My interest dates back nearly 50 years to my acquisition of a reprint of the 1944–5 edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships. Whilst looking through the South American section I came across the names of ships that referred to mysterious battles fought by the Chileans and Peruvians. My interest piqued, I gradually found books by Victorian authors on the war, although they had little interest in the land campaigns that actually took up most of the war. To find out about these I had to teach myself to read Spanish (luckily a much easier language to learn than most!). Many long trips from the South Coast to London to visit Canning House and the British Libraries ensued. Then thanks to Tim Berners Lee and Jeff Bezos things started to move even faster.

The war was characterised by incredible determination by the unfortunate indigenous rank and file who had to struggle through some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world, often with no supply system, trudging through the Atacama Desert and the high passes of the Andes plagued by thirst, nakedness, little food, cholera, and altitude sickness.

By the standards of the continent the war was large, bearing in mind that San Martin and Bolivar liberated South America with armies of some 5,000. The biggest battle of the war, Chorrillos involved about 50,000 in total. It must be remembered that none of the combatants had a population of more than 2.5 million, had little or no industry and were, particularly in the case of Bolivia, socially undeveloped and poor compared to North America or Europe. Despite this, the war was fought with modern equipment – bolt action rifles, rifled European artillery, Winchester repeating carbines, mines, torpedo boats and ironclad warships. In fact, the Battle of Angamos represents the only battle between armoured ships between Lissa in 1866 and the Yalu River in 1894.

Many of the sources used were British or American and employed the Imperial or U.S. Customary Systems, whilst Spanish speaking writers will, of course, use the metric system. Where a source quoted Imperial or US measurements, I have quoted the metric equivalents in parenthesis.

With regard to military and naval ranks, I have tended to use their British equivalents, although it is necessary to bear in mind that Captain Prat was actually a commander (Capitan de Fragata).

Like the Spanish, South Americans often add their mother’s maiden name to their patronymic so Juan Williams, the first Commander of the Chilean fleet, was often referred to as Juan Williams Rebolledo. Sometimes the matronymic is separated by y’ as in Aurelio Garcia y Garcia.

Prologue

The Battles of Punta Pichalo and Pacocha

The most famous warship in South American history is undoubtedly a sea going monitor, the Huascar. Although she served both Peru and Chile in the War of the Pacific, she first came to the attention of students of naval affairs in 1877, when she acquired the dubious honour of being the only ironclad to do battle with the Royal Navy prior to the First World War, as well as being the first target of a Whitehead torpedo.¹

The incident came about because Nicolas Pierola, who was in exile in Chile, was plotting a third attempt to seize power in Peru from President Prado. Several of his supporters backed by 70 armed crewmembers from the training ship, the Apurimac, seized control of the Huascar, whilst she was in Callao and her captain was ashore.

Instead of sailing immediately to pick up Pierola, the Huascar interfered with several British-owned steamers of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. This included the illegal requisitioning of British-owned coal to enable the ship to complete its journey. At this stage, President Prado effectively declared the Huascar and her crew to be pirates. A Peruvian squadron, still loyal to the government and commanded by Guillermo Moore, was collected. It consisted of the Independencia, Union and Atahualpa. The monitor had to be towed by a Pacific Steam Navigation steamer, the Limena, as she was incapable of more than five knots. The force was subsequently joined by the Pilcomayo.

Despite the fact that the Independencia needed a refit and could not steam at her maximum speed, Moore’s squadron (minus the Atahualpa and Limena) managed to intercept the Huascar near Pisagua. There followed a farcical action, which the Peruvians grandiosely named the Battle of Punta Pichalo

The fight started at a range of 1,500 metres and lasted from 5:25 p.m. until 7:00 p.m., when darkness fell. It would seem that the Huascar fired only five 300-pounder shells due to gun defects. The Independencia replied 10 times from her 150-pounders and 30 times from her 70-pounders. Only the Independencia was hit, by a shell that went through her funnel and a steam escape valve before exploding. It wounded two men and destroyed one of her boats. This was despite the fact that the range descended so much that the protagonists were able to fire rifles at each other. Seemingly Moore attempted to steam around his opponent, who was ultimately able to escape as only the Union had the speed to catch her. Lacking armour, the Union was easily driven off when she attempted to pursue the ironclad.

The Huascar steamed to Ilo. Here, on 29 May, she ran into the British Pacific Squadron, under the command of Rear Admiral Algernon de Horsey, who had decided to deal with the piratical ironclad. His problem was that his flagship was a totally unarmoured cruiser, the Shah. She was fast, with a maximum speed of over 16 knots, and powerfully armed with fourteen 7-inch muzzle-loading rifles and eight 64-pounders on her broadside and a 9-inch muzzle-loading rifle in the bows. De Horsey recognised that she was desperately vulnerable if one of the Huascar’s 300-pounder shells should strike home. The Shah was supported by the Amethyst, a 13-knot corvette that mounted fourteen 64-pounders, an armament that would be totally useless in the coming action. When Pierola refused to surrender his vessel, the Shah opened fire at the comparatively long range of 1,900 yards (1737 metres). The range subsequently varied between 3,000 and 300 yards (2,743 and 274 metres), as the two British ships attempted to circle the Huascar. The Peruvian monitor kept its bow towards her main opponent in anticipation of a ramming attempt. This also made the Huascar a more difficult target. De Horsey had to be wary of the fact that the waters around the Huascar shoaled and both his vessels had a deeper draught than the Huascar.

The fight lasted for two hours and 40 minutes and finished at 5:45 p.m. In the darkness the Huascar slipped unseen out of the harbour and headed to Iquique. Here Pierola negotiated an amnesty for his supporters in return for the surrender of his ship to Captain Moore. Subsequently, President Prado tried to renege on the agreement, although he had authorised it in the first instance. Public opinion, however, was against him, especially as many Peruvians were outraged by what they regarded as de Horsey’s high-handed action. Prado ended up being pressured into not only honouring the amnesty, but also into allowing Pierola to go back into exile! The whole ludicrous episode showed not only the weakness of Peru’s naval vessels but also the weakness of the whole fabric of the country’s central government. It did not bode well for Peru when the crisis really began two years later.

The Huascar managed to fire a mere six or seven shots from her big guns, while the two British ships used up no less than 427 shells of all sizes. At one point the Shah closed to 400 yards (366 metres) and fired a Whitehead torpedo that the Huascar easily outran. The British ships suffered no hits except to their rigging, although the Huascar was peppered at least 50 times. Damage was not serious, as many of the shells were 64-pounders. One 9-inch shell did penetrate over halfway into the turret armour and an explosive shell (rather than an armour-piercing one) did actually pierce the armoured belt, killing one and injuring three. Otherwise, large hits on the armoured areas were ineffective. In all only one man was killed and five wounded. The ranges were simply too great for the shells to penetrate the Huascar’s armour. Two years later the Chilean navy could risk bringing the action down to decisive range. The result would be completely different.

In view of the appalling marksmanship of the Peruvian gunners in the Pacific War, the comments of a British officer writing in the Illustrated London News on 21 July 1877, make interesting reading: ‘Neither the Shah nor the Amethyst was hulled during the action, although the shooting from the Huascar was good and well directed. Almost all her shot came striking the water close along side us and ricocheted over our ship doing little damage’.

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1The first modern torpedo, the prototype of the torpedoes used to sink the Belgrano in 1981.

1

The Road to War

Now often referred to as the ‘Switzerland of South America’, Bolivia sits high in the Andes cut off from the sea. On 13 February 1879, however, it did have a coast. The Atacama Desert gave it a small but not well used portal to the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, access to the high Altiplano, the heartland of Bolivia, was difficult with few usable routes. To make matters worse the area was disputed with Chile as the Spanish had seen no need to delineate the boundary between the two provinces. After independence there was still little need, as the area was one of the driest spots in the world and there was nothing there to argue over.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, the Chileans were beginning to become interested in the Atacama. Large portions on the desert were covered in guano, seabird droppings, that never washed away, as there was never any rain. That was quickly dug out of the ground. Once it was gone, attention turned to the nitrates that were actually in the ground itself and which, like the guano, were never washed out of the soil. They were used for fertiliser and gunpowder and so, before it was produced artificially, Atacama nitrates were the Victorian equivalent of oil. After the war, the Chileans had a monopoly on the nitrate industry and, although the mines were sold off to private interests, the taxes were able to provide the government with around half of its ordinary revenue. The level of production did, however, fluctuate depending of the number and size of wars at the time as every army and navy needed gunpowder.

Unfortunately, all of Bolivia’s limited capital was tied up in the mines in the mountains and the mine owners were uninterested in developing the coastal Litoral Department. The Chileans, however, were. With support from British expertise and capital, the Chileans were soon digging out and separating the nitrates for export. Many wealthy Chileans were financing the operation and an agreement was reached, but not ratified by the Bolivian Congress, to allow the Chileans to do this without any raising of taxation in return for the Chileans putting their territorial claims into abeyance.

It was the fate of Bolivia to be ruled by a series of incompetent and corrupt dictators and in 1879 there was yet another in the presidential palace, Hilarion Daza. He had risen to power by commanding the principal regiment of the Bolivian army, the Colorados. This regiment was kept at a much greater level of manning and equipment than the other two regiments and so allowed Daza to maintain his grip on power. 1878 saw the country in financial difficulties, as ever, and so Daza decided to introduce a tax of 10 centavos per quintal on all the nitrates being produced. The Chilean owners of the Compania de Salitre y Ferrocarril refused to pay and Daza ordered the confiscation of its property in Bolivia. Daza thought he would get away with the move as the Chileans were embroiled with the Argentinians over possession of Patagonia.

The Chilean president, Anibal Pinto, saw the Bolivian dispute as more important than that with the more powerful Argentinians over a semi-Arctic wasteland. There were many powerful politicians, including himself, and many of the richest Chilean families, who had an interest in the nitrate industry. He decided to respond with force if the Bolivians would not return the confiscated property and remove the tax. As a result, Chilean forces were sent to occupy Antofagusta, the only significant settlement in the department.

This, however, drew the Chileans’ other northern neighbours into the dispute. The Peruvians were concerned that once they had seen the Bolivians off, the Chileans would turn their attention to the Peruvian nitrate deposits in the adjoining Tarapaca Department. Mariano Prado, the President of Peru, sent a mission to Chile to mediate. The Chileans, however, were not interested. They revealed that they were aware of the supposedly secret treaty that the Peruvians and Bolivians had signed several years before aimed at the Chileans. The only result was that the Chileans declared war on them as well.

2

The Contending Forces

Bolivia

In February 1879, the Bolivian armed forces were totally unprepared for a conflict, particularly on their coast. The army, such as it was, was stationed in the Altiplano. It consisted of three infantry battalions, the Daza or Colorados (Reds) battalion, the Sucre or Amarillos (Yellows) battalion and the Illimani or Verdes (Greens) battalion. The Colorados were at full strength (600 men) and armed with modern rifles of the type used in the Franco-Prussian War (single shot rifled breech-loaders), while the other two were at half strength and armed with old muskets. Each battalion wore a jacket of the same colour as one of the bands on the Bolivian flag, hence their nicknames. In addition, there were two cavalry units, a squadron called the Coraceros, and a regiment, the Husares. Finally, there was a small artillery regiment, Santa Cruz, at battery strength.¹

There was a rush to complete new National Guard battalions when news reached the Altiplano of the Chilean invasion. These, however, lacked equipment and uniforms and there was a severe shortage of horses. Some even rode mules and some ended up as infantry units as no mounts could be found. The artillery arm could not be improved immediately as there was no access to modern European guns. The commissariat was non-existent, a fact which plagued the Bolivians throughout the war.

Perhaps the worst aspect of the Bolivian army was the officer to enlisted men ratio. In an army of 2,175 men, there were 16 generals, 219 colonels and lieutenant colonels, 215 majors, 100 captains, and 256 lieutenants. This, however, did not mean that when the army expanded rapidly after the seizure of Antofagusta there would be a large ready-made officer corps. Many of the officers were old, incompetent, untrained, and lazy. When the new units were formed, mainly from the National Guard, which was generally untrained and drilled, the officers were local gentlemen with no formal military training.

There was no Bolivian navy as such, merely a small collection of three sailing ships used for customs purposes. With the loss of its coast, they fell into Chilean hands.

1. Coraceros – Bolivia’s cuirassiers, equipped with French Imperial Guards armour and helmets, but inadequately mounted.

2. Irene Morales – born in 1865 in a poor district of Santiago. Working as a seamstress, she moved to Antofagusta in Bolivia and married, but her second husband killed a Bolivian soldier in a drunken brawl in 1878 and was shot by the Bolivian Army. Irene, thirsting for revenge, joined the 3rd Line Regiment of the Chilean Army dressed as a man. The disguise was not convincing, she was far too feminine, and it was soon realised she was a young girl. She was permitted to remain in the army as a cantiniere, although she took a rifle and joined in the fighting. Her bravery and rifle skills brought her to Manuel Baquedano’s attention, and he promoted her to sergeant and permitted her to continue. She died aged just 25.

3. Chilean ambulances – several were organised as part of the Chilean Army.

Chile

Commentators after the war described Chile as ‘the Prussia of the Pacific’, implying that the Chileans possessed a well-oiled and organised war machine akin to the Prussian army that had unified Germany a few years before after defeating the French, Danes and Austrians. This was, however, far from the truth; the Chilean army and navy entered the war in a state of unreadiness due to financial crises before the war which had caused the National Guard to be continually reduced, had left the regular army units as cadres, and most naval vessels in a poor state.

The Chileans did have several significant advantages over their opponents. The government was stable; there had not been a successful coup for nearly 50 years and the army commanders were subservient to their political masters, unlike Peruvian and Bolivian generals. The economy, although subject to crises, was in a better state than most in South America and so equipment was more homogenous and up to date. This had allowed the army to send officers to Europe for training; Patricio Lynch had been seconded to the Royal Navy and had even fought in the Opium Wars. Many officers had recent experience of fighting on the Araucanian frontier against the fierce Mapuches, whereas most of their opponents’ experience was in organising coups.

In February 1879 the infantry arm consisted of four infantry regiments of 300 men plus a regiment of Zapadores (Sappers), whose main job was military construction on the Araucanian frontier. The navy contributed a unit of marines, Artilleria de Marina, which, like the Zapadores, were used as infantry. Their name came from the fact that they were equipped with several smooth-bore guns for naval landings.² These do not appear to have been much used during the land campaigns. The line battalions were rapidly expanded to form two battalion regiments and numerous National Guard were raised, initially as only single battalions, although some were later expanded to form two battalion regiments.

4. Chilean artillery battery – obviously a field battery, due to the presence of horse-drawn limbers rather than mules.

The cavalry arm consisted of two regiments, again at cadre strength, although these were soon brought up to full numbers. The great advantages of the cavalry arm were the ability to obtain good, big mounts and the fact that they served as melee cavalry in the style of many European armies. The cavalry arm was not expanded significantly, only one regiment and several squadrons were raised, presumably as neither the Atacama or the Andes, where the final campaigns were fought, were suitable for horses.

The artillery initially consisted of some 16 guns, mostly 1868 or 1873 breech-loading rifled Krupp guns. With good credit and access to European markets these were soon reinforced with more modern guns (mainly Krupp).

Despite the army being rapidly expanded, it was well equipped and uniformed and was drilled for eight hours a day. This meant that the National Guard battalions were soon on a par with their regular comrades. Several were even redesignated as regular army units.

Although the supply system was never fully adequate, attempts were made to upgrade the commissariat and to create a medical corps.

The Chilean navy was the decisive factor in the war.³ It possessed two compact but efficient ironclads, the Blanco Encalada and the Almirante Cochrane that outclassed their Peruvian opponents. The rest of the ships were badly maintained and unarmoured. By controlling the sea lanes of the southern Pacific coast, it was able to transport the army and supplies to fight in all the major campaigns up to the fall of Lima. It had better access to the sites of the major land campaigns than the allied armies did, as communications in-land were undeveloped for the most part. The Chileans also benefited from a sizeable mercantile marine, which enabled it to transport large portions of the army up and down the coast.

Peru

As tension mounted in the area, many observers felt that Peru was the stronger power, after all it possessed four armoured ships to the Chileans’ two and its army was twice as big. What they failed to realise was that Chile’s two ironclad outclassed the Peruvian ships. The Huascar and Independencia were both smaller, and outdated compared to their opponents, and less well armoured.

The other two ironclads, the Atahualpa and Manco Capac were American Civil War monitors,