Decisive Battles Since Waterloo/Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXIII.
BATTLE OF MIRAFLORES—1881.
When the South American republics gained their independence in the early part of the present century, there was a general agreement that their boundaries should be established according to those of the Spanish provinces of 1810. In accordance with this agreement, the Bolivian province of Atacama on the Pacific coast extended to the southern limit of Peru on one side, and the northern limit of Chili on the other. The northern limit of Chili was at latitude 25° south, and the province of Atacama in Bolivia was then a desert tract of no particular value. In course of time it was found that the desert contained inexhaustible stores of nitrate of soda and borax, that there were deposits of guano along the coast, and the mountain portions of the province possessed some of the richest silver mines in the world. In consequence of these discoveries, troubles arose between Bolivia and Chili; they afterwards extended to Peru, and out of them grew the war of 1879-81.
Chili laid claim to all territory south of the 23d parallel. After considerable discussion and negotiation, the President of Bolivia in 1866 signed a treaty, conceding Chili's right as far north as the 24th parallel, but the treaty was never ratified by the Bolivian Congress. In return for this supposed concession, it was stipulated that Chili should receive half the customs duties collected between the 23d and 24th parallels, while Bolivia should have half of the duties collected between the 24th and 25th parallels. This was an admirable arrangement for Chili, as the richest deposits of nitrates are north of the 24th parallel, and she would be entitled to a considerable revenue every year without the trouble and expense of collecting it.
As a matter of fact, the customs dues were not properly paid, and Chili found in this circumstance a new cause of grievance. In 1870 rich silver mines were discovered at Caracoles, north of the 24th parallel, and the Bolivian government granted a concession to a company to work these mines and also the nitrate deposits. The company was under English management, backed by English and Chilian capital; it paid $10,000 to the government for the concession, and built a railway from the port of Antofagasta. The company began operations, and soon fell into disputes with the Bolivian government, relative to the export duties on the nitrates, which it was sending to foreign countries.
In 1873 a treaty of alliance between Peru and Bolivia was signed and approved by the National Assemblies of the two countries. It provided for a mutual guaranty of the independence of the two countries, and defence against aggression from others. It was agreed in the treaty that all conciliatory measures were to be tried to prevent war, and that arbitration through a third party was to be sought whenever possible. In 1878 the Bolivian government called upon the Antofagasta company to pay the duties which had accumulated on its exports; the company refused payment, whereupon the government ordered the seizure and sale by auction of enough of the company's
property to pay the claims. Immediately the Chilian government proceeded to hostilities, but did not declare war, by seizing the Bolivian ports of Antofagasta, Cobija, and Tocapilla. Peru offered her services as mediator, but, as too often happens to the arbiter in cases of mediation, it was speedily involved in trouble with Chili. This trouble 
was, in part, attributable to unwise legislation by Peru, relative to the nitrate deposits in her southern province of Tarapaca, which borders upon Atacama.
In consequence of her financial difficulties, Peru in 1873 made the nitrate deposits of Tarapaca a government monopoly, the state paying a fixed price to producers, and being herself the sole exporter. The nitrate deposits were being exploited by Chilian and English capital, and the labor employed in the work was mostly Chilian. Under these circumstances, Chili protested on behalf of her subjects, whose interests were seriously interfered with, and finding the law a failure, Peru abandoned it, substituting another authorizing the government to buy up all the nitrate works. There was a great deal of diplomatic correspondence, and it is impossible to harmonize all the statements contained in the voluminous papers. The end of the affair was that Chili declared war upon Peru on the 5th April, 1879.
Chili was in far better condition for war than either of her adversaries. Owing to the character of the Pacific coast of South America, the strip of land between the Andes and the ocean consisting of waterless desert with occasional valleys, every thing depends upon the possession of the sea. Chili had been increasing her navy, while that of Peru had not been augmented. The Chilians had 2 powerful iron-clads of the newest pattern, the Almirante Cochrane and Blanco Encalada, which were alone capable of destroying the entire Peruvian fleet. In addition to these she had 4 corvettes, each carrying from 1 to 3 150-pounder, 7-ton Armstrong guns, 2 wooden gun-boats heavily armed, and 10 transports. The Peruvians had 1 turret-ship, the Huascar, but her armor could easily be pierced by the shot of the Chilian iron-clads, and her armament consisted of 2 10-inch Dahlgren guns and 2 40-pounder Whitworths. She had also a broadside iron-clad of the old type, the Independencia, and 2 wooden corvettes. Two monitors purchased from the United States at the end of the civil war cannot be classed among the sea-going ships of Peru, as they were permanently stationed, one at Callao and the other at Arica.
In land forces, the armies of the two countries were proportionately the same as their navies, Chili being superior in numbers, drill, discipline, effectiveness, and equipment. Chili had provided herself with Krupp breech-loading field-guns, while Peru had nothing else than the old-fashioned muzzle-loading smooth-bore cannon, of a range far inferior to that of the Chilian Krupps. At the outbreak of the war Bolivia was very poorly provided for active operations. Her army, small in numbers, had only 1,500 Remington rifles, the rest of her small-arms being old-fashioned flint-lock muskets.
In February, 1879, the Chilians seized the Bolivian port of Antofagasta, and from there sent a force to the silver mines of Caracoles. On receiving news of the invasion, the President of Bolivia declared war against Chili, and prepared to defend his territories as best he could. The first encounter of the war was on the 23d March at Calama, a small village about eighty miles from the coast, and nearly due north of Caracoles. The Chilians attacked it with 600 men, the defence being in the hands of about one fourth that number. The defenders fought for about three hours, killing several Chilians, but were compelled to retire, owing to the superiority of the assailants in numbers and equipment.
Immediately after the declaration of war between Peru and Chili, on the 5th April, the Chilian fleet appeared off the Peruvian forts, occupying those that were undefended and blockading others. Wherever there was any show of resistance, the towns were bombarded, and some of them were laid in ruins. For some weeks the war was conducted principally by the navy; one of the Chilian corvettes was destroyed by the Peruvian iron-clad Huascar, and shortly afterwards the Independencia was decoyed on the rocks by a Chilian gun-boat, and lost. From this time the Peruvian fleet acted chiefly on the defensive, as the preponderance of the Chilian navy was overwhelming. On the 8th October the Huascar was captured by the Chilian fleet off Mejillones, after a gallant fight of 6 hours. As this was the first battle ever fought on the open ocean between iron-clads of the modern type, it may be worth our while to digress briefly in order to study the peculiarities of the combat.
Miguel Grau, the commander of the Huascar, was a Colombian by birth, and his father was a captain under Bolivar at the battle of Ayacucho. At the time the war broke out he had been 29 years in the Peruvian navy, and reached the rank of rear-admiral. After the loss of the Independencia, the Huascar and the corvette Union cruised in company for the purpose of capturing Chilian transports, or any other vessels that came in their way and were not too strong to cope with. On the 1st October a Chilian fleet of 2 iron-clads and several other vessels, all carefully cleaned and refitted, left Valparaiso for the purpose of capturing the Huascar. Arriving off Arica, the Chilian admiral learned that the Huascar and Union were cruising to the southward; the Huascar had not been cleaned for some time, and her speed was inferior to that of the Chilian iron-clads, who would thus be able to choose their distance in case they could catch her in the open sea.
On the morning of the 8th, when a fog lifted, Admiral Grau found himself caught between the two divisions of the Chilian fleet, one consisting of the iron-clad Blanco and the gun-boat Covadonga, with a transport, and the other of the iron-clad Cochrane, the corvette O'Higgins, and the gun-boat Loa. Either of the Chilian iron-clads was superior to the Huascar, and now that he was between both, and they had the gun-boats and corvette to aid them, the Peruvian admiral's chance of escape was hopeless. Finding that he could not get away, owing to his inferior speed, he determined to fight, first ordering the Union to leave as fast as possible, since she would be the only naval hope of Peru in case of the Huascar's loss. As she was of superior speed, she had no difficulty in getting away, though her commander greatly regretted parting company with the Huascar in the time of the latter's danger.
At 25 minutes past nine o'clock the Huascar fired the first shot at a distance of about 3,000 yards; it was aimed at the Cochrane and fell short. A second and a third shots were fired with the same result; the Huascar's fourth shot penetrated the armor plating of the Cochrane, and passed through the galley, and then the Cochrane began to return her adversary's fire. Her fourth shot struck the Huascar's turret and temporarily disabled it, but it was soon in order again. The Huascar's turret was worked by hand, while that of the Cochrane was operated by steam. The fifth shot from the Huascar struck the armor of the Cochrane but did not penetrate it, and then, as the ships had closed considerably, Admiral Grau tried to ram his adversary.
The manœuvre was defeated by the Cochrane, which turned very quickly by using her twin screws; she could turn in half the space required by the Huascar, and her commander, Captain Latorre, showed great judgment and coolness in handling her. The ships were now fighting at distances varying from 300 to 50 yards, and a steady fire from rifles and machine guns was maintained on both sides. Exactly half an hour after the first shot was fired a shell from the Cochrane exploded in the Huascar's pilot tower, in which were Admiral Grau and one of his lieutenants. Both were killed, and so terrific was the explosion that the bodies were literally blown into fragments, the largest piece of the gallant admiral that was afterwards found and recognizable being a portion of one leg.
Up to the time of the bursting of the shell in the pilot tower the Huascar had been skilfully handled: the firing on both sides had not been particularly noteworthy as only a small percentage of the shots had taken effect. A few minutes after ten o'clock the Blanco came within range and fired her first shot at the Huascar from a distance of 600 yards. On board the latter ship her senior surviving officer, Don Elias Aguirre, had assumed command on the death of Admiral Grau; a few minutes later his head was taken off by a shell from the Blanco, and the next officer in rank, Captain Carbajal, was severely wounded by the same shell. Lieutenant Rodriguez next took the command, but he too was killed before many minutes. Lieutenant Palacios succeeded him, but before the action was over he was severely wounded, and the command fell to Lieutenant Garezon. By this time the Huascar was quite disabled.
Her steam-steering gear was rendered useless by the same shell that killed the admiral, and from that time she was steered by tackles managed below; there were no speaking tubes from the deck to where the tackles were operated, and orders had to be passed by messengers, which caused much confusion and totally prevented rapid evolutions. One of the turret guns was disabled, and the turret could not be turned. The flag of the Huascar was shot away, and there was a cessation of hostilities, which were resumed as soon as the flag went up again; she made several attempts to ram her opponents, but each one failed, and the same was the case with the Chilian endeavors to destroy her in the same way. Both sides kept up a severe fire with machine guns, the Huascar being equipped with the Gatling while the Chilians carried the Nordenfeldt. Her machine-gun fire was silenced, whether by the superiority of the number of the Chilian guns, or their effectiveness, is a matter of dispute between the advocates of the rival systems.
At eleven o'clock, one hour and a half after the action began, the Huascar's flag was hauled down, and she was boarded by a boat from the Cochrane. Lieutenant Garczon surrendered to the boarding officers, who found that there were three feet of water in the ship's hold, and the lining of the pilot turret had caught fire. Dead and wounded were lying in every direction, their bodies fearfully mutilated, and the captain's cabin was literally filled with corpses. Upper and lower decks were alike drenched in blood and strewn with dead and wounded. The Huascar went into action with 193 officers and men; of this number, 64, almost exactly one third, were killed or wounded, and the officer by whom the ship was surrendered was the sixth in rank when the battle began, only 90 minutes before. The five who ranked him had been killed or mortally wounded!
No torpedoes were used in the fight, and of all the attempts at ramming none were successful. The contest was thus confined to artillery, with the exception of the use of small-arms and machine guns when the vessels were at close quarters. The Cochrane fired 46 rounds, and the Blanco 31, using Palliser shells. Of these 77 shots fired by the Chilians, only 24 touched the Huascar; the shells burst after penetration, showing that the 4½-inch plating of the Huascar was useless. The Huascar fired about 40 rounds, and her guns were served rapidly but without good aim. Only a few of her shot struck the Cochrane. Those that struck her at a distance of 600 yards and at an angle of 30 degrees penetrated about three inches, but were broken by the force of the impact. They broke an iron beam and started some of the bolts and inner linings, but compared with the effect of the Chilian shells on the Huascar they were of no serious consequence. The armor of the Chilian iron-clad is 9 inches thick at the water line, and 7 or 8 inches round the battery.
With the capture of the Huascar the Chilians obtained practically the control of the sea, and could send their troops where they pleased. They could despatch a fleet with sealed orders, and the Peruvians would be unable even to guess at what point it was directed. The Peruvians had a coast line of 1,400 miles to defend, and the peculiar formation of the country made the defence of this long line impossible. It must be borne in mind that the coast of Peru is rainless, and its fertile valleys occur at long intervals, between tracts of waterless deserts. The railways in Peru do not skirt the coast, but run from it to the interior; in the southern part of Peru the deserts cover nearly the whole of the area of the country, and are backed at distances varying from 30 to 100 miles by the Cordilleras, or outlying chain of the Andes. With the ports blockaded, it is thus impossible to move troops from one threatened point to another, in any time that would render them of avail.
It was necessary to make preparations for defence along the whole line, or, failing this, to defend the most important points. No one could tell where the attack would be made, whether on the capital and its seaport, Callao, on the Tacna region, or on the district containing the deposits of nitrates, about which the war had arisen. The general belief in government circles was that the first movement would be on Tarapaca, the most southern province, where the difficulties of a defending force would be greater than at most other points.
Accordingly great efforts were made to concentrate a force in Tarapaca before communication by sea should be cut off, and Peruvian troops arrived there during March, April, and May. The Bolivian army, 4,000 strong, reached Tacna, in Peru, on the 30th April, under command of the President of Bolivia, and about three weeks later the Peruvian President, as commander-in-chief of the military forces, arrived in Arica, the port of Tacna, to organize the army of Tarapaca. There was a total of 9,000 men altogether, but the cavalry was badly mounted, and the artillery (16 guns) was of the old-fashioned kind, and quite inefficient against the breech-loading pieces of the Chilians.
The Chilians assembled at Antofagasta an army of 10,000 men, with 850 well-mounted cavalry, and 32 long-range field-guns of the newest pattern. This force was embarked on four men-of-war and fifteen transports, and sailed on the 28th October for an unknown destination, which afterwards proved to be Pisagua, 274 miles from Antofagasta. By a blunder the medical stores and ambulances were left behind, and as a consequence most of the Chilians wounded in the attack on Pisagua died of neglect. Pisagua was defended by a force of less than 1,000 altogether; they succeeded in killing 235 of the invaders before retreating from the place, but their own loss was greater, owing to the heavy fire of the Chilian men-of-war. Pisagua was occupied by the Chilians on the 2d November, and before the end of the month the combined armies of Peru and Bolivia had been defeated in two battles, one near Iquique and the other at Tarapaca. They retreated to Arica, which they reached on the 16th December, and found blockaded by the Chilian fleet.
The province of Tarapaca was thus wrested from Peru in a single short campaign, and Chili was in possession of the much-coveted nitrate districts. In February, 1880, a second campaign was undertaken, and a fleet sailed from Pisagua for the conquest of the Tacna region. The plan was for the Chilians to make a landing north of Arica, the port of Tacna, where the allied army was concentrated, and thus cut off the line of retreat. When this was accomplished the allies would be attacked in their isolated position, where escape would be next to impossible.
The plan was carried out by landing 14,000 men at Ylo, Pacocha, and Islay, and taking possession of the lines of railway extending into the interior. Tacna was taken, and after it Arica, the defeated allies being driven to the mountains. Arica was taken by a combined naval and land attack; its garrison made a vigorous defence, and only yielded to superior numbers and weight of metal. Meantime Callao was blockaded, and there was great alarm in Lima. General Pierola was named dictator of Peru, and a levy en masse of all able to bear arms was ordered. It was impossible for the Peruvians, without a navy, to raise the blockade of Callao, but they showed considerable ingenuity in destroying one of the blockaders.
One afternoon a small vessel laden with fruit was captured while trying to steal her way along the coast, about 16 miles from Callao. Her crew dropped the anchor and fled to the shore in a row-boat as they saw their captors approaching. The Chilians took her alongside the armed transport Loa, and began removing her cargo,—a welcome prize to men who had been living for weeks on salt provisions. As the last package was removed there was a terrific explosion, which blew a large hole in the side of the Loa, and sent her to the bottom of the ocean in 5 minutes, with her captain, 3 officers, and 50 men; 38 of the crew were saved by boats from neutral men-of-war, lying about 4 miles away. It is supposed that there was a case of 250 pounds of dynamite, fired by mechanism so arranged that the removal of the weight above it would set it off.
A few weeks later the Chilian armed steamer Covadonga was destroyed by another ingenious trick of the Peruvians. She had been sent to blockade the port of Chancay, and her captain, seeing a smart-looking gig anchored in the harbor, about 300 yards from the mole, sent a midshipman with a boat to bring it away. It was freshly painted and fully equipped, and was a life-boat, with air-boxes at both ends. The boat pleased the captain so much that he determined to use her for a gig, and accordingly gave orders that she should be hoisted at the davits of the Covadonga.
Hardly were the tackles hauled taut when she exploded, blowing such a hole in the side of the ship that she sank in 3 minutes; 115 persons perished, including the captain; 15 men escaped in one of the boats, and 50 who climbed into the rigging were saved by Peruvian boats from the shore. It is supposed that the air-boxes Contained dynamite, which was fired by the pull on the tackles, but the character of the mechanism is not known.
In October, 1880, mediation between the contending countries was undertaken by the United States of America, but was unsuccessful. A conference was held on board the U. S. corvette Lackawanna, in the harbor of Arica, Peru, Bolivia, and Chili each sending a commissioner, while the representatives of the United States for the respective countries were present.
Immediately after the unsuccessful issue of the conference, Chili despatched an expeditionary force of 30,000 men for the conquest of Peru, its operations being intended to capture the capital. The exact strength of the army was 1,202 officers and 24,956 men, of all arms, with 103 cannon, 77 mountain pieces, 8 Gatlings, and 3 Nordenfeldt's. It was in three divisions and a reserve. One division landed at Pisco and marched overland, 107 miles, to Curayaco and Chilca, where the rest of the expeditionary force was put on shore. Chilca is only 25 miles from Lima and about 10 from the rich valley of Lurin, one of the garden spots of Peru. To oppose this army of well-equipped invaders the Peruvians, had four divisions of a nominal aggregate strength of 20,000. Less than 3,000 were worthy of consideration as veterans. The greater part of the army of the defence was composed of raw and badly armed troops, procured by the levy en masse of all males in Lima between the ages of sixteen and sixty and capable of bearing arms. The artillery was numerically about equal to that of the Chilians, but vastly inferior in range and effectiveness.
General Pierola, dictator and commander-in-chief of the military forces of Peru, decided upon a line of defences along the sandy hills at the edge of the desert, extending from the Morro Solar and Chorillos to the mountains on the east, and about ten miles from Lima. The line was fully six miles long, and broken by barren hills and gullies. Breastworks were hastily thrown up, ditches dug, and guns mounted, but in many places the obstructions to an advance of the enemy were of little consequence owing to the shallowness of the ditches and the insufficiency of the breastworks.
A second line about four miles long and six miles from Lima was prepared just outside Miraflores. Behind the defences, as the Chilian army approached, General Pierola assembled his forces, which consisted of the hastily assembled people of the capital, raw recruits from the interior, and the few soldiers he had been able to gather from the remnants of the armies defeated at Tarapaca and Tacna. Many of the guns that were mounted in the defences were actually unserviceable, and some of the newest of those made at Lima had not been sighted.
The first division of the Chilian army which landed at Pisco marched northward on the 13th December to unite with the force that disembarked at Curayaco, as already stated. Their advance was unopposed until the 23d, when they encountered some Peruvian cavalry, by which they were harassed for two or three days, as the road offered concealment in the shape of trees and bushes. The second division reached Curayaco on the 22d, and the landing occupied two days. The cavalry was sent forward to occupy the valley of the Lurin, and on the 27th it surprised and captured a Peruvian cavalry detachment, the same that had impeded the march of the Chilian first division. This was a serious disaster for the Peruvians, as their whole cavalry force defending Lima did not exceed 600 men.
The valley of the Lurin was devastated by the Chilians in their leisurely march upon Lima, the soldiers committing the excesses usually attributable to an advancing army in an enemy's country. The Chilians remained three weeks in the Lurin valley, the time being spent in collecting provisions, getting every thing in readiness for the advance, maturing plans for the capture of Lima, and ascertaining as fully as possible the strength and position of the Peruvians.
From the upper part of the Lurin valley there is a road following the foot of the mountains, and crossing a strip of desert to Até, a little village in a corner of the valley in which Lima is situated. The Chilian commander sent a reconnoitring expedition as far as Até, to ascertain the state of the defences in that region; as this road passed around the extreme left of the Peruvian line, it was contemplated to turn completely the Peruvian position by marching around to Até and reaching Lima by the rear. After careful deliberation the plan was rejected, as there is not a drop of water for fifteen miles over the desert; the debouch into the plain in face of an enemy would have been difficult, and the inland route would prevent all co-operation by the fleet. A direct attack was decided upon.
The 1st Chilian division under General Lynch formed the left wing of the attacking army. It was to assault the line of defence between Morro Solar and Santa Teresa, and then push against Chorillos, which lies on the coast about half-way between the two lines of defence. The 2d division under General Sotomayor was to break the line in front of San Juan, and then co-operate with Lynch against Chorillos. The 3d division, commanded by Colonel Lagos, was on the extreme right; it was to hold the Peruvian left in check, or support the centre as cirumstances might require, and the reserve, under Colonel Martinez, was in the space between the left and centre, ready to move in whatever direction it was ordered.
The Peruvian commander-in-chief had his head-quarters at Chorillos, and his army was encamped behind the lines of defence. Colonel Iglesias with 5,000 men held the right of the line under the brow of the Morro Solar. General Caceres held the centre, which was stationed at the hills of Santa Teresa and San Juan, while General Davila held the left. The division of Suarez formed the reserve. The Chilian plan was to march from Lurin on the evening of the 12th January, and attack the line of Peruvian defences at daylight on the 13th. The three divisions marched accordingly, and bivouacked at midnight on a plateau about two miles in front of the Peruvian position.
At dawn they all advanced. The 1st division, the one nearest the sea, had the shortest distance to move, and by 5 a.m. it was smartly engaged with the Peruvians. The Chilian men-of-war hauled in as near the shore as they could with safety, and began to throw shot and shell among the Peruvians. The latter held their positions gallantly in spite of the preponderance against them, until the Chilian reserve was brought up with orders to attack on the flank of the Peruvian right wing, which was then forced back but not broken. At 6 a.m. the Chilian 2d division attacked the defences in front of San Juan, and carried them at the point of the bayonet; at the same time the 3d division attacked the Peruvian left, who held their position until 7.30, when the line wavered and retreated. The Chilian cavalry was then started along the road to Tebes, and cut down the fugitives in great number. Those who escaped from the attack of the Chilian 3d division fled in the direction of Lima, while the division of Caceres fell back upon Chorillos.
Colonel Iglesias held the Morro Solar, and the Chilians proceeded to attack him in front with their 1st division, while the reserve came in upon the Peruvians on the opposite side. The 2d Chilian division advanced upon Chorillos by the San Juan road, and the rest of the troops were held in waiting near the houses of San Juan. Iglesias maintained himself for several hours, but was finally driven to the point of Chorillos where he surrendered in order to prevent further slaughter. The reserve under Suarez should have reinforced Iglesias, but owing to a conflict of orders it did not. A portion of the reserve was engaged with the Chilian 2d division, but was driven back, and by 2 p.m. the fighting was over and Chorillos was in possession of the Chilians, who speedily sacked and burned it.
The losses of the Chilians were reported at 2,000 killed and wounded, and the Peruvian loss was placed at double that number. As soon as the defence of Chorillos became hopeless. General Pierola and his staff with their escort retired to Miraflores, where they busied themselves with endeavors to put the second line of defence in condition to repel the advance of the Chilians.
No advance was made on the 14th January. On the 15th, the diplomatic corps in Lima endeavored to prevent further bloodshed, and asked for a suspension of hostilities, which was granted, though the Chilian commander insisted upon carrying out a movement of troops that had been commenced. The armistice was to last until midnight of the 15th, but it was broken by a collision of the troops of the contending armies, through a misunderstanding of their commanders at one point. From this collision the action became general.
The second line of defence was stronger than the first, as it was better mounted with artillery, and the water-courses were utilized as far as possible to serve as ditches in front of the breastworks. There were five redoubts on this line mounted with artillery and with intrenchments between them. The line was defended by about 12,000 Peruvians, and the assaulting force was about 13,000 strong. Miraflores was the central point of the position, and between Miraflores and the sea the line was continued to a semicircular redoubt on the extreme right of the Peruvians. This redoubt was mounted with two heavy Rodman guns from Callao, and was called the Alfonso Ugarte fort, in honor of an officer who fell in the defence of Arica. General Caceres commanded this fort, while General Pierola was in a redoubt on the left.
The battle began at 2.45 p.m. The Chilians opened with artillery on the Ugarte fort, which was enfiladed by the Chilian fleet, consisting of two ironclads and three corvettes. They speedily dismounted the Rodman guns and rendered the fort untenable by their well-directed fire, but the Peruvians continued the defence until, after a long bombardment, the Chilian 3d division advanced against them. At 4.30 p.m. the Peruvians had exhausted their ammunition and fell back to join the centre, thus yielding the Ugarte fort to the Chilians. The Peruvian left was defended with such vigor that at one time the Chilians wavered, but, reinforcements coming up, they carried the redoubts with the bayonet, and the last hope of Lima was gone. The centre redoubt was carried at 5.45 p.m., and thus ended the battle of Miraflores for the defence of Lima. When the last redoubt was carried, General Pierola rode from the field and retired to the village of Canta in the mountains. By 6.45 Miraflores was in flames and nearly all the houses in it were destroyed.
On the 16th the municipal alcalde surrendered the city to the Chilians, and on the 17th the army entered and took possession. The foreign ministers interfered to prevent further destruction of property, and were backed in their intervention by the foreign fleets in the harbor of Callao. The dangerous classes threatened to run riot during the night of the 16th, and would have caused great damage to the city had it not been for the foreigners, who formed a volunteer corps for the preservation of order and property. The Chilian losses in the capture of Chorillos and Miraflores were reported at 1,299 killed and 4,144 wounded. The Peruvian losses were estimated at 6,000 killed and 3,000 wounded, but owing to the confusion the exact figures were never ascertained.
The battle of Miraflores decided the fate of Peru, though it was some time thereafter before the war came to an end. Expeditions were sent to various points in the interior, and there was considerable fighting, though no battles of consequence took place. In January a treaty of peace was made between Chili and Bolivia, by which the latter surrendered her coast provinces to Chili and agreed to break off relations with Peru. In the following year, after long negotiations, Chili and Peru agreed upon terms of peace, the latter ceding her southern provinces and paying a war indemnity that left the country sadly impoverished. Peru was already heavily burdened with debt in consequence of her enormous expenditures for railways and other public improvements. She is slowly emerging from the depressed condition in which she was thrown by the war, but it will be many years before she recovers her former position among the republics of South America.
