2024-01-15 20:39:20
One of the key points that aggravated the effects of the invasion was the restrictions that the government of the day imposed on relief services, such as that of the Peruvian Red Cross (CRP), which had been founded two years earlier, in 1879, but which had until then demonstrated great efficiency. Despite this, the poor management of the political authorities prevented the CRP from acting and saving many civilian and military lives.
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In two years of operation, the CRP had a small but valuable medical organization, experienced in war, and with hundreds of volunteers, especially women from all social conditions who gave their time and property to help the humanitarian institution.
In Lima, until before the government of Nicolás de Piérola, the Peruvian Red Cross had assumed responsibility for the Chorrillos Blood Hospital, and was also regarding to assume the Santa Sofía Hospital, on the outskirts of the capital, when the government dispensed with his support, giving the order to the surgeon-in-chief of the army, Dr. José Casimiro Ulloa. Despite this snub, the institution continued to support Dr. Ulloa’s work in Santa Sofia.
Monument to those who fell in the battle of San Juan, during the taking of Lima by the Chilean forces, which destroyed the resorts of Chorrillos and Miraflores. (Photo: GEC Archive)
/ Carolina Ugarte
It was under these circumstances that the Chilean troops arrived at the gates of Lima. The Chilean president Aníbal Pinto, initially reluctant to the daring expedition, finally decided to take the city of Lima as a strategic measure, since he was aware that prolonging the war would not benefit them.
Since Peru was a centralist country, conquering the capital might ensure final victory, and in reality it did, regardless of the brave action of the patriotic forces led by Andrés A. Cáceres, who resisted until the end of the war in the mountains. central (Brena Campaign).
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PACIFIC WAR: UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS DID PERUVIANS AND CHILEANS ARRIVE TO FIGHT IN LIMA 143 YEARS AGO?
That January 1881, there were 22 thousand men in Peru: 16 thousand soldiers brought from the center and north of the country by Cáceres and six thousand civilians. The latter would be the true heroes. According to specialists, the ‘battles of Lima’ were among the most dramatic on the American continent. The six thousand Peruvian civilians, brave and determined, had to “train” militarily in a few days and prepare the defense both in the Line Army in San Juan and in the ‘redoubts’ of Miraflores.
In November 1880, a group of Chileans had landed in Pisco, and then in December of that year the bulk of the invading troops, well equipped and with excellent medical aid, arrived as far as Lurín: it was the main force of 16 thousand men.
View from Morro Solar of the entire bay of Lima. In those Chorrilla parts, the fierce battle of San Juan took place on January 13, 1881. (Photo: GEC Archive)
/ Carolina Ugarte
In total, more than 27 thousand soldiers assaulted the Peruvian capital. The Chileans, who had already looted and attacked a large part of the central and northern coast with Captain Patricio Lynch at the head, had arrived from the port of Arica with a large fleet, and decided to wait south of the capital. Under the command of General Manuel Baquedano, they attacked from the front, on the San Juan line, and not as feared along the Ate path, further to the left of the defense.
The night of January 12, 1881 was an accomplice for the southerners. Nicolás Lynch’s Division headed to Chorrillos, where the Peruvian Miguel Iglesias was in command; that of Sotomayor to San Juan once morest Andrés A. Cáceres; and that of Lagos towards the hills of San Francisco and El Cascajal, on the left flank, which Pastor Dávila defended. This Lagos was the one with the unfortunate phrase: “Today there are no prisoners.”
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WAR WITH CHILE: THE DEFENSE OF LIMA WAS HEROIC AND BRUTAL
On January 13, 1881, the battle began at 4:30 in the morning, and ended at 2:30 in the followingnoon. Ten hours of continuous fighting. In San Juan alone, six thousand Peruvians died and more than four thousand were injured. Morro Solar and Cerro Marcavilca were stained with patriotic blood.
For their part, the invaders also suffered serious casualties. It is estimated that there were 4,000 dead and hundreds injured, although, according to official figures from the southern country, the number of casualties was only “1,873 dead.”
The dictator Nicolás de Piérola organized the defense of Lima, but committed a series of logistical and administrative errors that caused great damage to the civil and military defenders themselves. (Photo: Archive)
Historian Herman Buse tells in El Comercio (January 1981) that the fatal scene was that of dozens of Peruvian and Chilean soldiers, dead side by side, both skewered by the sharp tips of their bayonets. The looting and burning of Chorrillos, Buse said, was carried out once morest all pacts of military and humanitarian honor.
Despite the Peruvian reaction with Andrés A. Cáceres at the head, the invaders imposed robbery and attacks on the defenseless population of Chorrillos that night of the 13th. On January 14, 1881 they recovered and advanced towards the “redoubts” of Miraflores .
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PACIFIC WAR: THE ‘REDUCTS’ FIGHTED TO THE DEATH AGAINST THE ENEMY
January 15, 1881 was the other epic, in which, apparently, more civilians than soldiers died. The Peruvian and foreign authorities believed in a truce requested by Chile, which only gained time to reorganize. And so, cunningly deceiving the dictator Nicolás de Piérola, who was having lunch in a luxurious Miraflorian house, the bombing began from the Cochrane and Huáscar ships, controlled by the Chileans. Yes, the Huáscar bombed Lima.
The ‘redoubts’ disconnected from each other, the artillery and war material limited or without renewal, and the absurd measure of placing cannons on the top of the San Cristóbal hill, almost 20 kilometers from the Chilean attack, gave the signs of defeat and of the delivery of Lima. But it was not entirely easy for the southern invaders.
The figure of Andrés A. Cáceres stood out in the midst of the chaos of Lima. He was wounded in San Juan, and did not allow himself to be captured by the enemies. He continued fighting in the central mountains of the country. (Photo: GEC Historical Archive)
Nineteen battalions of reservists made up five divisions, which formed two Army Corps. In these ‘redoubts’, separated one kilometer from each other, there were professionals such as lawyers and engineers, and people from various trades such as artisans or typographers. But there were also many university teachers, who died or saw their disciples die, those young people who only thought regarding defending their country from the enemy hosts.
In the Bajada de Armendáriz, near the Church of Fátima, on the railway line to Chorrillos (Hacienda La Palma), there were some of these heroic ‘redoubts’. “They were crescent-shaped and were composed of a parapet of flattened earth, as General Dellepiane describes them, with the addition of bags or sacks of the same material; two meters high and a thickness of five, or a little more,” said historian Buse.
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In the midst of improvisation and disorder, there were many ‘redoubts’ that did not enter combat. Some estimated that there were thousands of reservists who did not fight due to lack of military planning. In one of those inactive ‘redoubts’ was none other than the Peruvian writer and essayist Manuel González Prada.
PACIFIC WAR: THE FINAL BATTLE OF LIMA
The “final battle” for Lima was going to take place in Miraflores. It all started on January 15, 1881, at 2:15 in the followingnoon, and ended at six in the followingnoon. Again the three Chilean combat lines (Lagos, Lynch and Sotomayor), on the sea side, another on La Palma and La Calera de la Merced, and the last on the leftmost side of the resistance.
Andrés A. Cáceres was an example of Peruvian rebellion once morest the Chilean occupation during the so-called Saltpeter War. (Photo: GEC Archive)
/ CORREO
However, not even the cannons of the Chilean fleet decimated the patriotic ardor of the Peruvians. Military and civilians together, despite their shortcomings, gave an example of honor and courage to the vain Chilean army.
Two thousand invaders died before the Peruvian defense, more than in San Juan, this due to the confusion of the Chileans themselves who did not have such a brave defense. The historian Jorge Basadre estimated that Peruvian losses did not fall below three thousand that devilish followingnoon. But almost 4 thousand survived the catastrophe.
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Meanwhile, Nicolás de Piérola, faced with the imminent defeat, rode quickly to the center of Lima, climbed the slopes of the San Cristóbal hill – where he saw the useless cannons that he ordered to be placed – and gallantly headed towards the mountains of Lima, passing through Carabayllo. Later we would see it in other circumstances that were more political than warlike.
PACIFIC WAR: THE PERUVIAN RED CROSS HANDS TIED
A special note deserves the role of the Peruvian Red Cross (CRP) in those unfortunate moments of the country. As we said at the beginning, this institution suffered the ups and downs of the disorganization of the State. Something that the perpetual Secretary of the CRP, Carlos Sotomayor, did not keep silent regarding, who denounced in 1884, before the Third International Conference of the Red Cross, in Geneva (Switzerland), the irresponsibility of the Piérola government, in matters of medical service for the defenders of Lime.
Lima, 1880. Image of a volunteer from the Peruvian Red Cross, posing next to a soldier and his wife. (Source: Gunther Doering Photographic Archive).
Military ambulances, Sotomayor declared, “left much to be desired”; and, above all, he denounced the inexplicable measure of the Prefecture by ordering all CRP personnel to compulsorily enlist in the Reserve Army. The result: doctors, nurses, practitioners and employees might not fulfill their duty to help, so vital in that war situation.
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And Sotomayor himself was enlisted, in the battle of Miraflores, as a soldier of the fourth Reserve Battalion, and it was he who would later regret, mainly, the deactivation of the Lima Ambulance, one of the most complete of those times and made up of the personnel of the four ambulances coming from southern Peru.
There were, therefore, no civilian ambulances in the battles of San Juan and Miraflores. And all this because the Piérola government suppressed, by means of a Prefectural decree, later ratified by a supreme decree published in El Peruano, on October 2, 1880, the Central Ambulance Board of the CRP. This was the War of the Pacific in Lima exactly 143 years ago.
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