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Peru THE WAR OF THE PACIFIC, 1879-83
The war with Chile developed over the disputed,
nitrate-rich
Atacama Desert. Neither Peru, nor its ally, Bolivia, in
the
regional balance of power against Chile, had been able to
solidify its territorial claims in the desert, which left
the
rising power of Chile to assert its designs over the
region.
Chile chose to attack Bolivia after Bolivia broke the
Treaty of
1866 between the two countries by raising taxes on the
export of
nitrates from the region, mainly controlled by Chilean
companies.
In response, Bolivia invoked its secret alliance with
Peru, the
Treaty of 1873, to go to war.
Peru was obligated, then, to enter a war for which it
was
woefully unprepared, particularly since the antimilitary
Pardo
government had sharply cut the defense budget. With the
perspective of hindsight, the outcome with Peru's more
powerful
and better organized foe to the south was altogether
predictable.
This was especially true after Peru's initial defeat in
the naval
Battle of Iquique Bay, where it lost one of its two
iron-clad
warships. Five months later, it lost the other, allowing
Chile to
gain complete control of the sea lanes and thus to
virtually
dictate the pace of the war. Although the Peruvians fought
the
superior Chilean expeditionary forces doggedly thereafter,
resorting to guerrilla action in the Sierra after the fall
of
Lima in 1881, they were finally forced to conclude a peace
settlement in 1883. The Treaty of Ancón ceded to Chile in
perpetuity the nitrate-rich province of Tarapacá and
provided
that the provinces of Tacna and Arica would remain in
Chilean
possession for ten years, when a plebiscite would be held
to
decide their final fate
(see
fig. 3). After repeated
delays, both
countries finally agreed in 1929, after outside mediation
by the
United States, to a compromise solution to the dispute by
which
Tacna would be returned to Peru and Chile would retain
Arica. For
Peru, defeat and dismemberment by Chile in war brought to
a final
disastrous conclusion an era that had begun so
auspiciously in
the early 1840s with the initial promise of guano-led
development
(see
Postindependence: Military Defeat and Nation-Building
, ch. 5).
Data as of September 1992
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