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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Chile
Index
Fearing a threat to Chilean commercial and shipping
interests,
and even sovereignty by the newly created Peru-Bolivia
Confederation led by Bolivian general Andrés de Santa Cruz
y
Calahumana, Chile declared war on the confederation in
1836. The
Chilean Navy, gradually run down since the end of the
struggle for
independence, consisted of only two small vessels.
Nevertheless,
once more it rapidly tripled its strength by captures from
the
larger Peruvian fleet. Within a year, the Chilean Navy had
established control of the sea.
On land, a Chilean force of approximately 2,800, under
the
command of Blanco Encalada, landed at Islay in southern
Peru in
October 1837, occupying Arequipa after a long and arduous
march,
during which the Chileans were decimated by disease.
Following an
encounter at Paucarpata with an army under the command of
Santa
Cruz, the Chilean force concluded a peace treaty, the
Treaty of
Paucarpata, on November 17, before returning to Valparaíso
rather
ignominiously. The Chilean government repudiated the
treaty in
indignation and in 1838 dispatched a better-prepared
Chilean force
under General Manuel Bulnes Prieto. Landing at Ancón,
north of
Lima, on August 6, this force commenced a slow march
southward
toward the Peruvian capital of Lima, while the Chilean
fleet
blockaded the main Peruvian port of Callao.
Although their advance was delayed by harassment from
small
allied forces, the Chileans were finally able to lay siege
to Lima.
The Chilean force occupied Lima at the end of October 1838
but
abandoned it on November 3 on hearing of the approach of a
large
Bolivian army under General Santa Cruz. The Chileans
withdrew by
land and sea toward Huacho. However, Santa Cruz failed to
exploit
the Chilean retreat fully, despite successes in several
small
skirmishes culminating in a major Chilean reverse at Buín
on
January 6, 1839.
The resounding defeat of the Peruvian fleet at Casma by
a
smaller Chilean squadron under British admiral Roberto
Simpson, on
January 12, left Chile in absolute control of the
southeastern
Pacific. General Bulnes again assumed the initiative.
After
inflicting a crushing defeat on the Bolivian Army at
Yungay on
January 20, the Chileans commenced a second push
southward,
occupying Lima for the second time in April. Santa Cruz
had already
fled to Ecuador, and both the war and the short-lived
Peru-Bolivia
Confederation now came to an end.
After 1843, when Bulnes was president (1841-51), the
Chilean
Army concentrated on penetrating the area south of the Río
Bío-Bío,
still largely the domain of the Araucanian people. In
response, the
Araucanians rose in a bloody revolt, which was suppressed
in 1859-
61, although the southern portion of the country remained
largely
outside the control of the national government.
In 1865, in a last attempt to reconquer their lost
South
American colonies, the Spaniards blockaded Chilean and
Peruvian
ports, an action that led to war between Spain and an ad
hoc
alliance of Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. Hostilities
were
confined to the sea. Although twenty-six years of freedom
from
external threat had once again seen the decline of the
Chilean
Navy, the blockade was effectively broken by the naval
victory of
the allied fleet, under the Chilean admiral Juan Williams
Rebolledo, at Papudo on September 17, 1866. The naval war
with
Spain ended shortly afterward.
Data as of March 1994
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