War with Chile: When Lima Fought in the Battles of San Juan and Miraflores and the Obstacles to the Peruvian Red Cross in 1881 | Nicolas de Pierola

One of the key points that aggravated the effects of the invasion were the restrictions that the government of the time imposed on the relief services, such as that of the Peruvian Red Cross (CRP), founded two years earlier, in 1879, but which until then had demonstrated great efficiency. Despite this, the mismanagement of the political authorities prevented the CRP from acting and saving many civilian and military lives.

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In two years of activity, the CRP had a small but precious medical organization, expert in war, and with hundreds of volunteers, especially women of all social conditions, who donated their time and goods 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 about to also assume the Santa Sofía Hospital, on the outskirts of the capital, when the government gave up the his support, giving the order to the army chief surgeon, Doctor José Casimiro Ulloa. Despite this affront, the institution continued to support Dr. Ulloa’s work at Hagia Sophia.

Monument to the fallen in the Battle of San Juan, during the capture of Lima by Chilean forces, which destroyed the towns of Chorrillos and Miraflores. (Photo: GEC Archive)

/Carolina Ugarte

It was under these circumstances that the Chilean troops arrived at the gates of Lima. 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 bring him any advantage.

Since Peru was a centralist country, the conquest of the capital could guarantee the final victory, and in reality it was, despite the courageous action of the patriotic forces led by Andrés A. Cáceres, who resisted until the end of the war in the central mountains. (Brena countryside).

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PACIFIC WAR: UNDER WHICH CONDITIONS DID PERUVIANS AND CHILEANS COME 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 from Cáceres and six thousand civilians. The latter would be the real heroes. According to specialists, the “battles of Lima” were among the most dramatic on the American continent. The six thousand Peruvian civilians, courageous and determined, had to “train” militarily in a few days and prepare the defense both in the Army of the Line of San Juan and in the “redoubts” of Miraflores.

In November 1880 a group of Chileans landed in Pisco, then in December of that year the bulk of the invasion 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 parts of Chorrilla, the ferocious Battle of San Juan took place on January 13, 1881. (Photo: GEC Archive)

/Carolina Ugarte

In total, more than 27 thousand soldiers attacked the Peruvian capital. The Chileans, who had already plundered and attacked much of the north-central coast led by Captain Patricio Lynch, had arrived from the port of Arica with a large fleet, and had decided to wait south of the capital. Under the command of General Manuel Baquedano, they attacked frontally, on the San Juan line, and not, as feared, along the Ate path, further to the left of the defense.

On the night of January 12, 1881 he was an accomplice of the southerners. Nicolás Lynch’s division headed to Chorrillos, where the Peruvian Miguel Iglesias was in command; Sotomayor’s in San Juan against Andrés A. Cáceres; and that of Lagos towards the hills of San Francisco and El Cascajal, on the left flank, which defended Pastor Dávila. This Lagos was the one with the unfortunate phrase: “There are no prisoners today.”

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WAR WITH CHILE: LIMA’S DEFENSE WAS HEROIC AND BRUTAL

On January 13, 1881 the battle began at 4:30 in the morning and ended at 2:30 in the afternoon. Ten hours of continuous combat. 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 heavy losses. It is estimated that there were 4,000 dead and hundreds injured, although, according to official data from the southern country, the number of victims was only “1,873 deaths”.

The dictator Nicolás de Piérola organized the defense of Lima, but committed a series of logistical and administrative errors that caused serious damage to the civil and military defenders themselves. (Photo: Archive)

The historian Herman Buse recounts in El Comercio (January 1981) that the fatal scene was that of dozens of Peruvian and Chilean soldiers, dead side by side, both pierced by the sharp points of their bayonets. The looting and burning of Chorrillos, Buse said, was carried out against all military and humanitarian honor pacts.

Despite the Peruvian reaction led by Andrés A. Cáceres, the invaders inflicted robberies 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’ WILL FIGHT TO THE DEATH AGAINST THE ENEMY

January 15, 1881 was the other epic, in which, apparently, more civilians than soldiers died. Peruvian and foreign authorities believed in a truce requested by Chile, which only bought time to reorganize. And so, cunningly deceiving the dictator Nicolás de Piérola, who was having lunch in a luxurious Miraflorian house, the bombings by the Chilean-controlled ships Cochrane and Huáscar began. Yes, 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 the defeat and the surrender of Lima. But it was not entirely easy for the southern invaders.

In the chaos of Lima, the figure of Andrés A. Cáceres stands out. He was wounded in San Juan and did not allow himself to be captured by the enemies. He continued to fight in the central mountains of the country. (Photo: GEC Historical Archive)

Nineteen reservist battalions made up five divisions, which formed two army corps. In these ‘redoubts’, a kilometer apart from each other, there were professionals such as lawyers and engineers, and people of various trades such as craftsmen or printers. But there were also many university professors who died or saw their disciples die, those young people who only thought about defending their homeland from the enemy ranks.

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 leveled earth, as General Dellepiane describes them, with the addition of sacks or sacks of the same material; two meters high and five meters thick, or a little more,” said the historian Buse.

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In the midst of improvisation and disorder, there were many “redoubts” that did not enter combat. Some estimate that there were thousands of reservists who did not fight due to a 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 would take place in Miraflores. It all began on January 15, 1881, at 2.15 pm, and ended at 6 pm. Again the three Chilean battle lines (Lagos, Lynch and Sotomayor), on the sea side, another on La Palma and La Calera de la Merced, and the last one on the leftmost side of the resistance.

Andrés A. Cáceres was an example of Peruvian rebellion against Chilean occupation during the so-called Saltpeter War. (Photo: GEC Archive)

/ CORREO

But not even the guns of the Chilean fleet managed to decimate 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 in front of the Peruvian defense, more than in San Juan, due to the confusion of the Chileans themselves who did not have such a courageous defense. Historian Jorge Basadre estimates that Peruvian losses did not fall below three thousand units on that diabolical afternoon. But almost 4,000 survived the catastrophe.

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Meanwhile, Nicolás de Piérola, facing imminent defeat, rode quickly to the center of Lima, climbed the slopes of San Cristóbal hill – where he saw the useless cannons he had placed – and gallantly headed towards the Lima mountains. , passing through Carabayllo. Later we will see it in other circumstances that are more political than war.

PACIFIC WAR: THE PERUVIAN RED CROSS HAS HANDS TIED

The role of the Peruvian Red Cross (CRP) in those unfortunate moments in the country deserves a special note. As we said at the beginning, this institution has suffered the ups and downs of the disorganization of the state. Something that the perpetual secretary of the CRP, Carlos Sotomayor, did not remain silent, who denounced in 1884, before the Third International Conference of the Red Cross, in Geneva (Switzerland), the irresponsibility of the Piérola government, in terms of health service for the defenders of Lime.

Lima, 1880. Image of a Peruvian Red Cross volunteer, posing next to a soldier and his wife. (Source: Gunther Doering Photographic Archive).

Military ambulances, Sotomayor declared, “left a lot to be desired”; and, above all, he denounced the Prefecture’s inexplicable decision to order all CRP personnel to compulsorily enlist in the Reserve Army. The result: doctors, nurses, professionals and employees could 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, above all, the deactivation of the Lima ambulance, one of the most complete of those times and composed of personnel of the four ambulances coming from southern Peru.

There were therefore no civilian ambulances at the battles of San Juan and Miraflores. And all this because the Piérola government suppressed, with a prefectural decree, then ratified by a supreme decree published in El Peruano, on 2 October 1880, the Central Ambulance Council of the CRP. This was the Pacific War in Lima exactly 143 years ago.

War with Chile: When Lima Fought in the Battles of San Juan and Miraflores and the Obstacles to the Peruvian Red Cross in 1881 | Nicolas de Pierola | ARCHIVE-ELCOMERCIUM

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