CHAPTER III
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
The last years of Spanish rule were the most prosperous Chile had known. A brisk coasting trade sprang into being; a small merchant marine grew up; the removal of the prohibition against free commerce with the rest of Spanish South America raised prices. The opening of Buenos Aires reacted upon her western neighbour, and Chile ceased to depend on the Isthmus route. A spirit of enterprise was awakened by a freer intercourse with the outside world and by the immigration of hardy adventurers who came through Buenos Aires, the great South American rendezvous of that day.
PLAZA DEL ARMAS, SANTIAGO.
Among these immigrants was the famous Ambrose O'Higgins, a poor Irish lad, who landed at Buenos Aires, made his way to Chile, started as a peddler, became an army contractor, made a fortune, got a commission in the army, distinguished himself in an expedition against the Araucanians, ingratiated himself with everybody by his wit, courage, and good-natured shrewdness, and finally was selected as captain-general. He ruled the country wisely and well until promoted to be viceroy at Lima. His successors were mostly able and honest men, and under their government the natural causes making for the prosperity of Chile had free scope. Wealth increased, and with it love of display, honours, and letters. Santiago became a real capital, the favourite residence of the landed aristocracy and a social centre where fashions were prescribed. The English war into which France pushed Spain in 1796 much damaged Chilean commerce, but not sufficiently to stop the impulse already received. The old ignorant content with Spanish rule gave place to a growing demand for the removal of all restrictions, and the appetite for commercial freedom grew with what it fed on.
Chile was still comparatively poor and backward. The rude population were engaged in a harsh struggle with fierce savages and in laying the foundations of material prosperity. Most of these people were the descendants of Indians accustomed for centuries to implicit obedience to a rustic, unlettered aristocracy. The genius of the race was rather practical than ideal, and the long, careless government by men invariably chosen for their military abilities rather than their qualities as civil administrators had not tended to make Chile a fertile soil for the development of revolutionary ideas. Chilean society was less favourably constituted for sudden changes than that of Buenos Aires—the boom town of the time, with its active commerce, its restless recently arrived population,—or that of the northern viceroyalties, controlled by professional and office-holding classes and parish priests.
Two or three hundred families held most of the lands of Chile, and the power of this aristocracy was especially predominant in the provinces around Santiago. In the southern provinces long wars had thinned the native population and dispossessed the original grantees. Estates were more widely distributed and opinion more radical, but in the rest of the country the newer immigrants had been forced to accept the system, and the comparatively few families who owned the land and thereby controlled the means of subsistence of the whole people, enjoyed unquestioned ascendancy. But conservative as this aristocracy was, among its members there rankled a profound jealousy of the Spanish officials who wrung excessive taxes from their reluctant fingers; who enforced the Spanish regulations forbidding the culture of grapes, olives, and tobacco; who until recently had closed the ports, cutting off the profitable sale of crops, and compelling the payment of extravagant prices for manufactured goods; and most irritating of all, who still monopolised the lucrative offices.
The news of Ferdinand's imprisonment and the invasion of Spain by Napoleon's armies reached Chile in the late summer of 1809, creating great excitement among the Spanish office-holders and the Creole aristocracy. Sentiment was universal against submission to the French usurpation and discussion at once began of how the government should be carried on during the King's captivity. Carrasco, the captain-general, hesitated and vacillated between the conflicting suggestions.
In preparation for an emergency, whose exact nature no one could foresee, the city authorities gathered arms, drilled troops, and levied extra taxes. The property-owning and governing classes divided into two currents of opinion. The government officials, with their friends and hangers-on, saw that their interests would best be served by the recognition of the revolutionary juntas which had assumed the ad interim direction of affairs in Spain. The leading Creole families proposed the establishment of an independent junta, pending Ferdinand's return, or the definite defeat of the national cause in Spain. Although the latter party warmly protested their faithfulness to the mother-country, at bottom they designed to secure for Chile and Chileans virtual independence while Spain's troubles lasted, and the Spanish officials did not hesitate to characterise their opponents as rebels. Feeling rapidly grew intense, and in May, 1810, the captain-general ordered the arrest of several prominent Creoles. This arbitrary measure aroused such a fierce clamour that Carrasco lost his nerve, and consented to the release of the prisoners. This indication of weakness encouraged the agitators, and when news came across the Andes that the people of Buenos Aires had deposed their viceroy, Santiago broke into revolution.
The captain-general had summoned an open cabildo to enjoin obedience to certain orders received from Spain, but this assembly tumultuously demanded his resignation. Helpless against the popular outcry and the hostile attitude of the city government, he turned over his authority to Toro, a wealthy nobleman, whose venerable age and pacific disposition seemed likely to preserve the peace. Nevertheless, the Creoles persisted in their demand for an independent Chilean junta. Another meeting of all the qualified electors was called; the arrival of a representative of the new junta at Buenos Aires, who strongly urged Chile to follow Argentina's example, had its influence; and on the 18th of September, the date observed as the anniversary of Chilean independence, Toro resigned his authority to the cabildo. The office of captain-general was abolished and power passed to a junta of seven. Chile's ports were opened to all nations, quadrupling the customs receipts in a single year, and the country began a virtually separate existence, although the acts of the junta ran in the name of the Spanish King.
However, the junta's power rested upon a basis too narrow for stability. Representing only the Santiago aristocracy, there was no certainty that its orders would be respected in the provinces, or that independent juntas would not be set up in other cities. To remedy this difficulty a national congress was summoned, but the junta allotted to Santiago almost as many members as to all the other municipalities together. The elections took place in April, 1811, and while they were going on the Spanish officer in command of a detachment at Santiago revolted. A member of the junta, José Carrera by name, an active and ambitious young man, who belonged to one of the most influential Creole families, distinguished himself by attacking and defeating the Spaniard with an improvised force of armed patriots. When congress met it voted many reforms; abolishing slavery, reorganising the judiciary, freeing commerce of vexatious restrictions, decreeing the payment of the clergy out of the public treasury instead of by tithes, and conferring on the elective bodies of the municipalities the right to elect their own city officers. However, divisions soon arose among the members. The representatives of the outside provinces bitterly complained of the unfairness of the apportionment; the radicals wished to reorganise everything, while the conservatives insisted on preserving many of the old institutions. The Santiago representatives, chosen from the landed aristocracy, were mostly conservative, while the members from the South were largely radical. Under the leadership of Doctor Rosas, the latter withdrew. The Santiago conservatives, left in undisputed control of congress, displaced the old junta, but Carrera and his two brothers had made themselves all powerful in the army by cleverly seizing its Spanish officers. He determined to ally himself with the radicals and assume supreme power. Marching to the hall of congress at the head of his troops, he compelled the selection of a new junta with himself as chief, and expelled the members upon whom he could not rely. Rosas had meanwhile established a radical junta at Concepcion, and Carrera offered to associate him in the government. Rosas declined, and the Santiago leader, now frankly a military dictator, advanced with an army to reduce the South to obedience. But the news that the Spanish party had gained the ascendancy in Valdivia and Chiloë intimidated him, and he made peace with Rosas, retiring to Santiago. His emissaries nevertheless continued to intrigue in Concepcion and finally stirred up a riot which resulted in Rosas' expulsion.
For nearly two years Carrera and his brothers remained in power, governing by military force, confiscating the property of their enemies, allowing their friends to loot the public funds, and committing many enormities. Conspiracy after conspiracy was formed against them, only to be detected and suppressed, while the patriots divided into hostile factions each selfishly ambitious for control. Meanwhile Abascal, the able and resolute viceroy at Lima, had succeeded in keeping Peru submissive, in crushing out the revolution in Ecuador and Bolivia, and in repelling the northward march of the Argentine patriots. He now prepared to send an army to re-establish royal authority in Chile. Early in 1813 a large force landed at Talcahuano and, advancing to Concepcion, was joined by the garrison of that place. Reinforcements came up from Valdivia and Chiloë, and the Spanish general took the road for Santiago at the head of four thousand men. In the face of this imminent danger the bickerings of the patriots were hushed. Carrera advanced to the South in command of twelve thousand men, poorly armed and disciplined. On the Spanish side the officers were, however, suspicious, and had little confidence in their raw levies. A sudden and successful attack on an outpost near the river Maule was followed by a panic among the royalists, and they retreated in disorder, but with no great loss, to the fortifications of Chillan, only fifty miles from Concepcion. Detachments of patriots pushed on to Concepcion and captured that place and Talcahuano. The Spanish army was completely isolated in Chillan, but had found there an abundant supply of provisions, and successfully resisted Carrera's efforts to take the place. His hastily gathered levies, without means of sheltering themselves from the rain and cold, melted away by desertion. Finally he retired toward Concepcion followed by the Spaniards and the remnants of his army were only saved from total rout by the gallantry and steadiness of Bernardo O'Higgins. This military chief, a natural son of the old Irish captain-general, and heir to his Chilean estates, had made common cause with the patriots at the beginning of the revolution, and attached himself to the fortunes of Rosas, the leader of the Concepcion radicals. When the latter was banished by Carrera, O'Higgins retired from the army. The Spanish invasion had roused him; he offered his sword to Carrera, and his dashing military talents sent him quickly to the front.
BERNARDO O'HIGGINS.
Carrera's failure at Chillan cost him his prestige, his rivals at Santiago took advantage of his absence to expel him from the junta, his violent measures at Concepcion exasperated its people to revolt, and his own troops became mutinous. The new Santiago junta formally nominated O'Higgins to the chief command and Carrera was compelled to withdraw. The new general inspired some vigour into the patriot operations, but the arrival of reinforcements from Lima gave the royalists an overwhelming preponderance in cavalry and artillery. The junta had recalled a large part of his forces to defend Santiago, when an unexpected movement by one of the Spanish divisions resulted in the capture of the important city of Talca, half-way between the capital and Concepcion. Though O'Higgins and the troops left in the South managed to repulse an attack of the main Spanish army, an army sent from Santiago failed to retake Talca and its destruction left the capital unprotected. O'Higgins by forced marches succeeded in beating the Spaniards to the Maule, saving the city for the moment. Meanwhile, a revolution had overthrown the junta responsible for the fatal Talca expedition and the new dictator entered into negotiations with the Spanish commander. The latter, confronted by O'Higgins' army, and anticipating a desperate resistance, thought it best not to press his advantage too far. He agreed to an armistice, and Chile offered to acknowledge allegiance to Spain, send members to the Cortes shortly to assemble, and accept any Constitution which might be promulgated by that body, if the viceroy would recognise ad interim the present Santiago government and withdraw the Spanish army within two months.
One result of the armistice was the liberation of the Carreras from the Spanish prison in which they had been confined since their deposition the year before. They hastened to Santiago and started an intrigue for the overthrow of Lastra and O'Higgins. Such was their popularity with the troops in Santiago and the extent of their family influence that they got possession of the city and were preparing to dispute the supreme control of Chile with O'Higgins by force of arms when news arrived that the viceroy refused to sanction the compromise, and that an army of peninsular veterans was on its way. Though Carrera and O'Higgins pretended a reconciliation, each distrusted the other, and took the field virtually independent. Under such conditions Chilean success was impossible. O'Higgins' division was annihilated at Rancagua, Carrera abandoned the capital, and fled with a few hundred followers over the Andes, where he was joined by O'Higgins and the more determined patriots. This influx of the pick of the fighting men of Chile was a valuable reinforcement for the army which San Martin was already organising behind the shelter of the eastern foothills. Between the rival Chilean leaders, Carrera and O'Higgins, he chose the latter, gave him his confidence, and made him his chief lieutenant, while Carrera, finding no place in San Martin's entourage, went on to Buenos Aires, never again to return to his native country.
Both aristocracy and people in Chile were tired of the military misrule which they had suffered during the dominance of the patriot chiefs. A deputation of the most prominent citizens went to welcome General Osorio as he advanced to Santiago after the battle of Rancagua. Within a month the Spanish power was securely re-established throughout the country. The leading revolutionists who remained in Chile were executed or banished, more than a hundred being exiled to the desolate island of Juan Fernandez. During two years and a half—from 1814 to 1817—Osorio and his successor, Marco del Ponte, ruled Chile with a rod of iron. So far as possible everything was restored as it had been before 1810. The Spanish judges were reinstated, elective municipal councils abolished, the newspapers suppressed, and all the liberal reforms revoked.
Meanwhile San Martin, behind the screen of the Andes, and only a hundred and fifty miles from Santiago, was forging a thunderbolt destined to shatter into fragments the edifice which Abascal had been so skilfully constructing through seven laborious years. The story of how the silent Argentine gathered and equipped the "Army of the Andes" has already been told. In the chapter devoted to Argentina the reader will find a meagre description of his marvellous march over the cloud-high passes, the descent into the plain of Aconcagua made so suddenly that the Spanish forces could not hurry up to bar his way, the prompt advance over the low transverse range which forms the northern boundary of the plain where Santiago stands, and the overwhelming victory in the gorge of Chacabuco against the pick of the Spanish veterans, who confidently stood to the attack, never dreaming until San Martin was right upon them that his main body had had time to reach the spot. The Spanish authorities at Madrid and Lima had made the irretrievable mistake of underestimating the efficiency of his army. They thought the troops in Chile amply able to take care of any four thousand men the patriots could get together, but San Martin's army was differently provided and organised than the undisciplined masses which had been routed at Huaqui, Villapugio, and Rancagua. The Spanish generals were not so much surprised at his crossing the Andes as at finding the troops which reached the Chilean plains to be well furnished with artillery, cavalry, and ammunition, perfectly ready for an aggressive campaign, and a match man for man for any force that could be brought against them.
RAILROAD BRIDGE BETWEEN SANTIAGO AND VALPARAISO.
The royalists lost twelve hundred of their best men at Chacabuco; only a thousand escaped from the field to fly in disorder toward Santiago. On the way they met the Spanish cavalry riding to join them, but Captain-General Marco, instead of rallying the three thousand men who remained under his orders, hurried out of town toward Valparaiso, anxious for his personal safety. San Martin had expected to be obliged to fight another battle and kept his army together, instead of pursuing and annihilating the dismayed Spaniards. More than half the latter managed to escape to Valparaiso, where they embarked for Peru. Santiago received the conqueror with no great enthusiasm. The moneyed classes feared another prolonged civil war with its attendant confiscations, forced contributions, and general disorder; the common people cared little whether a Spaniard or an Argentine occupied the governmental palace. However, no one dreamed of resistance; the partisans of the proscribed patriots and the votaries of independence and liberalism were delighted; San Martin with his host of hardy gauchos and Chilean exiles assumed full control of the capital. He summoned an assembly of notables who promptly and unanimously elected him "Governor of Chile with plenary powers." But this was not what the far-sighted and patriotic soldier wanted. He realised that Chile could never give that unquestioning support so vital to the success of his cherished campaign against Peru so long as any stranger, even himself, governed by force. San Martin peremptorily declined the honour, but intimated that he would be glad to see his staunch friend, O'Higgins, selected dictator, and accordingly the enemy of the Carreras was placed at the head of the new Chilean government.
With eyes fixed on a Peruvian campaign it was only natural that San Martin should leave immediate details in Chile to others. Though all central Chile submitted with good grace, the South remained a stronghold of the Spanish sympathisers. Among its warlike people the royalist armies had been recruited, and there lay the two strongest fortresses—Talcahuano and Valdivia—both of them still in possession of the Spaniards. After two months' delay, Las Heras, with a thousand men, was despatched, but his force was inadequate and his advance slow. Before he arrived near Concepcion, an able Spanish general, Ordoñez, who had fought side by side with San Martin in Spain, had organised a division equal in numbers, with which he retired to Concepcion and there was joined by the sixteen hundred troops who had escaped after the rout at Chacabuco, and who had been ordered back to Chile the moment they made their appearance at Callao. The Spanish general now thought himself strong enough to annihilate Las Heras, but the sortie which he led was beaten back in the battle of Gavilan. However, this victory was in no way decisive, and the patriots were not able to make any impression on the fortifications at Talcahuano or to advance south of the Biobio. Southern Chile remained hostile and Talcahuano and Valdivia were open doors through which the Spaniards could send reinforcements and supplies as long as they held command of the sea.
San Martin remained in Santiago only a short time after Chacabuco. Prepossessed with the idea that Chile could never be safe or Peru won until he had organised a fleet to wrest control of the Pacific from the Spaniards, he hastened across the Andes to arrange with his friends in the Argentine government for the necessary money. The Chilean campaign had saved Buenos Aires from impending invasion; the Argentine patriots would certainly be crushed if Chile should fall back into Spanish hands; they could never feel secure so long as Peru and Bolivia remained royalist. The promises which he asked were readily given, on his agreeing that Chile should contribute three hundred thousand dollars toward the purchase of a squadron on the Pacific, and forty thousand for the support of the Argentine army on the Bolivian frontier, besides taking the responsibility of the pay and maintenance of the Army of the Andes. Argentina was to aid in purchasing the fleet and hold back the Spaniards on the Bolivian border.
San Martin returned to Chile, where he was shortly followed by an official representative of the Argentine government and the alliance created by Chacabuco received formal sanction. He found Chilean affairs in a very unsatisfactory condition. O'Higgins was hated by the powerful partisans of the Carreras, and distrusted by Chileans generally as too much under Argentine influence. His power really rested upon Argentine bayonets; his appointment of Quintana, an Argentine and San Martin's aide-de-camp, as acting dictator at Santiago was bitterly resented. San Martin's presence did something to allay the feeling, but as a matter of fact he had little sympathy for the Chilean people, being a man who despised the arts by which popularity is gained, and who made few friends. Meanwhile the three Carreras were actively plotting from their exile at Buenos Aires for the overthrow of O'Higgins and San Martin. Their friends and agents swarmed in Chile and preparations were made for a rising as soon as they should set foot in the country. The two younger brothers attempted to cross the Andes in disguise, but were detected and arrested at Mendoza. Quintana ordered the imprisonment of many persons suspected of being Carrera partisans, but his severe measures raised national feeling to such a height that it was thought safest to carry out San Martin's suggestion and appoint a Chilean as acting dictator in his stead.
In the Argentine the position of the patriot government was even worse. With civil war actively raging in the one country and only held in check by foreign bayonets in the other, and with both governments struggling against financial difficulties, it is no wonder that the war-ships which were expected to sweep the Spanish frigates from the Pacific did not arrive. The delay cost the patriots dear. In January, 1818, four Spanish ships, mounting two hundred and thirty cannon sailed into Talcahuano, and landed three thousand four hundred well-equipped soldiers, most of them peninsular veterans. San Martin, a master of the art of recruiting, had raised a second army composed principally of Chileans and nearly equal in numbers to the original Army of the Andes, so that his total force amounted to nine thousand men, while the Spanish troops did not exceed five thousand. The Argentine general was in the dark as to where the enemy would land, and had already issued orders for O'Higgins, who was in command near Concepcion, to retreat, resolved on concentrating his forces near Valparaiso. Even after the Spanish army had disembarked at Talcahuano, San Martin was in doubt whether Osorio would not re-embark and strike at some unexpected harbour near Santiago. But the latter came up steadily by the land route, encountering no opposition though somewhat hampered by broken bridges and the bareness of the country of horses and supplies, for the retreating O'Higgins had left his track a desert. The farther the Spaniards penetrated toward Santiago the more difficult became the feeding of their army and the more certainly disastrous a retreat in case of reverse.
O'Higgins stopped at Talca to await orders, and there, on the 20th of January, 1818, he defiantly made proclamation of Chile's absolute independence of Spain. Three weeks later the approach of Osorio's army forced him to abandon the place and he retired to form a junction with San Martin. The latter completed his concentration and advanced with an army of over seven thousand men, superior in all arms and especially in cavalry and artillery. About a hundred miles south of Santiago he met the Spaniards and won some cavalry skirmishes. The enemy retired toward Talca, unwilling with inferior forces to bring on a general action where defeat meant annihilation, and even contemplating a retreat to Talcahuano. But behind them lay the deep river Maule, and San Martin made a dash to reach it first. The two armies marched rapidly on parallel lines with the patriot cavalry harassing the Spanish rear. On the afternoon of the 19th of March the Spaniards wheeled into line in excellent position just outside the city of Talca, with their west flank protected by a stretch of broken ground called the Cancha-Rayada. San Martin was following close, but the partial attack which be immediately made was interrupted by darkness before any decisive results were obtained. Hastily going into camp too near the enemy's lines and all unprepared for battle, the patriots were surprised at about nine o'clock in the evening by the assault of the whole Spanish army. The alarm was given by the cavalry pickets, but only a few had time to get into line of battle before the enemy was upon them. San Martin over on the extreme right heard a few volleys and then the noise of confused flight, scattering shots, and the thundering hoof-beats of the pursuing cavalry. O'Higgins had been wounded while trying to get his men into order, and from that moment the patriots in his neighbourhood thought of nothing but escape through the darkness. The centre and left, including the cavalry, dispersed in the wildest confusion, abandoning the artillery. The right wing, composed of three thousand five hundred infantry, was not attacked and waited in stupefaction for two or three hours not clearly understanding what had happened. Its officers held a council, put Las Heras in command, and by daybreak the division was sixteen miles from the field of battle. In the meantime San Martin and O'Higgins had found each other, and soon were busily engaged in collecting the scattered cavalry. The patriot loss in killed and wounded had been small, but a third of their number had deserted and many of the remainder searched in vain for their regiments. However, the royalist army had been nearly as badly dispersed in making this night attack as the patriots in receiving it. No effective pursuit could be made, and San Martin retreated on Santiago practically unmolested. The first news of the disaster was carried to the capital by fugitive officers. They reported that San Martin was killed and O'Higgins mortally wounded, and everything lost. Shouts of "Viva el rey" resounded through the streets; leading citizens opened communication with Osorio, and the republicans prepared for flight to Mendoza or Valparaiso. But the next day word came that San Martin himself was safe; and the day following a despatch saying he had four thousand men under his orders. With O'Higgins's arrival in the city the revolutionary disorders were suppressed, and soon San Martin rode into the city. Though half dead through loss of sleep, as he drew rein at his house he made the one speech of his life, laconically assuring the people that he expected to win the next battle, and that right soon.
Not forgetting precautions which ensured a safe retreat to the northern provinces or the Argentine, he devoted himself to re-organising the army, and within ten days after its dispersal had five thousand men together, well provided and resolute to give a good account of themselves. He took a position on a low line of chalk hills seven miles south-west of Santiago, and waited for the enemy, whose numbers were now slightly superior to his own. Meanwhile the Spanish officers were greatly disappointed at the negative results of Cancha-Rayada; mutual reproaches flew back and forth in their council of war; many advocated maintaining the defensive and even retreating to the south to be nearer their base. Their indecision gave San Martin the needed opportunity to gather his dispersed forces and to inspire them with his own confidence. Finally, however, Osorio advanced cautiously on Santiago, hoping that the Argentine would not risk another battle for the defence of the capital, and manœuvring to the west so as to get between the city and the sea. In front of San Martin's position lay another line of chalk hills, separated from the first by a narrow stretch of low ground. At their western end ran the road from Santiago to Valparaiso. Like the Union position at Gettysburg this line of hills was admirably adapted for a defensive battle, and Osorio resolved to occupy it, especially as he thought his left wing extended far enough west to command the Valparaiso road, thereby securing him a communication with a new and more convenient base on the coast and giving him a line of retreat in case of a reverse. But San Martin's quick eye saw that this opinion was mistaken; and that his opponent might easily be cut off.
NATIVE COSTUMES IN CHILE ABOUT 1840.
San Martin's tactical dispositions were admirably made on the momentous morning of April 5, 1818. He divided his army into two divisions and a reserve, stationing the latter on the extreme east of his line. Under cover of a heavy artillery fire the west division rushed down the slope, across the bottom, and up the hills commanding the Valparaiso road. The counter-charge of the Spanish horsemen was repulsed by the superior patriot cavalry, and the Spanish west wing was isolated from the rest of the army. Meanwhile the patriots' east division, composed of the bulk of their infantry, had charged straight across the narrow part of the bottom and reached the high ground opposite without seeing an enemy, but there was met by a terrific charge from the royalist infantry, and rolled in confusion back down the hill. Regardless of the artillery fire, the Spaniards were pursuing triumphantly over the low ground, when suddenly their eastern flank received the charge of the patriot reserve, which had advanced obliquely from its original position on the extreme east. This movement decided the battle. The Spanish infantry could not re-form to meet it, and were rolled up in helpless confusion. The flying patriot infantry rallied and returned to the attack; their cavalry, already victorious at the other end of the line, turned and charged the west flank of the Spaniards, who, simultaneously taken at both ends and in front, were cut down by hundreds. A few managed to keep their formation and fell back to the farm of Espejo, behind whose extensive buildings and garden walls they entrenched themselves, determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Joined by their left wing, which, unable to reach the centre where the hard fighting had taken place, had suffered little loss, they withstood the attack of the victorious patriot army. But the artillery was brought up, the walls knocked to pieces, and the position carried in the midst of the most frightful carnage. The infuriated patriots gave no quarter until General Las Heras rode among them and begged them to desist from the inhuman slaughter.
Maipo was the hardest fought battle in all the wars of South American independence. Of five thousand royalists, twelve hundred were killed, eight hundred wounded, and two thousand two hundred made prisoners. Only eight hundred escaped, flying south toward safety at Talcahuano, of whom less than a hundred held together until they reached the Spanish fortifications. Of the patriots more than a fifth were killed and wounded—the greatest sufferers being the freed negroes whom San Martin had recruited in the Argentine. Half of these brave fellows were left on the field.
Juan and Luiz Carrera, imprisoned at Mendoza, had been an embarrassment and menace to San Martin and O'Higgins. The latter hated them too much to be willing to make terms, and yet he feared that their execution would cause an insurrection by their family and party friends in Chile. A criminal prosecution had been trumped up against them and proceedings delayed on various pretexts. The news of the disaster at Cancha-Rayada was their death sentence. Dr. Monteagudo, O'Higgins's representative, acting as judge, sentenced them to death at three o'clock one afternoon and sent them to the shooting bench at five. Every Chilean who did not belong to the O'Higgins faction was profoundly shocked at this murder. Though the victims were agitators and revolutionists they belonged to one of the most respected families in Chile; with their older brother they had been the leaders in the first war against Spain; their devotion to the cause of independence was unquestioned, and they embodied the national sentiment which opposed the Argentine army's remaining on Chilean soil.
Pursuit of the Spaniards flying from the field of Maipo was hardly over when open opposition to O'Higgins and his policy broke out. A cavalry corps—the "Husares de la Muerte"—composed of Carrera partisans had volunteered after the rout at Cancha-Rayada and rendered valuable service at Maipo. O'Higgins ordered it to disband. An open cabildo met which voted the dictator's deposition, but his soldiers arrested the Carrera leader, shot him in cold blood, and the citizens had no alternative but to disperse and submit. O'Higgins undertook to crush the opposition by ferociously persecuting his republican enemies and rapaciously confiscating the property of the royalists. This so occupied him that he was unable to pay much attention to the Spaniards in the south. Osorio gathered a small force at Talcahuano, easily beat off some desultory expeditions which the patriots sent against him, and from May until September held the whole country south of the Maule. But after the slaughter at Maipo the viceroy had all he could do defending Peru and Bolivia. Late in the year Osorio withdrew with most of his troops, leaving only meagre garrisons in the fortresses of southern Chile.
San Martin had remained only a few days in Santiago, hurrying back to Buenos Aires to try to induce the Argentine government to carry out its promises of the year before and aid in the purchase of a fleet. Just before his departure an East Indiaman, carrying forty-four guns, had arrived at Valparaiso and the Chilean treasury was emptied to pay for her. When he reached Buenos Aires his friend Puerreyedon, the Argentine dictator, agreed to raise a loan of five hundred thousand dollars and send around two ships of the Argentine navy. San Martin immediately took the road for Chile, but at Mendoza a letter came forbidding him to draw on the Argentine treasury. He resigned, but the Argentine authorities, dismayed at the consequences of his withdrawal, finally gave him two hundred thousand dollars.
The winter storms make the Andean passes impracticable, and it was October before the general reached Santiago, where to his delight he found that O'Higgins had already got together a considerable squadron. The East Indiaman, bought just before Maipo, and manned by British and North American officers, had succeeded in capturing a Spanish brig. Two American privateers were shortly afterwards bought by the Chilean government, and their arrival was followed by that of an English vessel purchased by San Martin's agent in London. Others were on their way from the United States and two Argentine ships were reported to be coming around Cape Horn. A few days prior to San Martin's return to Santiago, Chile's two frigates with two smaller consorts had sailed south from Valparaiso in the hope of intercepting a fleet of transports, carrying two thousand troops and a great quantity of arms, which the Spanish government had sent around the Horn from Cadiz convoyed by a fifty-gun frigate. Stormy weather had, however, scattered the royalist fleet and more than half the transports gave up the attempt to weather the formidable promontory, though the frigate and the others succeeded. The transports evaded the Chileans and reached Callao in safety, but the frigate was caught lying at anchor in Talcahuano, and proved an important addition to the patriot navy.
The object for which San Martin had been planning and working during two years was achieved. His naval force, manned by professional sailors picked from among the best sea-fighting people of the world, was too formidable for the enemy to dare to attack. Chile was safe from invasion and Peru lay open to a descent. San Martin's first care was to wrest southern Chile from the Spaniards. To leave them in control of a fertile and populous territory where they could recruit troops, collect provisions, and menace Santiago was not safe. Toward the end of 1818 he sent his lieutenant, Balcarce, an Argentine, against them at the head of thirty-five hundred men. Such a force was irresistible; Chillan, Concepcion, and Talcahuano were abandoned and the Spanish commander shut himself up in the fortress of Valdivia.
But when San Martin came to face the question of organising and equipping an army adequate for the invasion of Peru he found the Chileans cold and indifferent. The success of their fleet had insured them against assault, and they appeared to be chiefly interested in getting rid of the Argentine army of occupation. The soldiers had not received their pay, and though O'Higgins issued a proclamation announcing an expedition to Peru, San Martin waited around for months without receiving the promised aid. Finally he presented his resignation as general-in-chief of the proposed Peruvian expedition, and withdrew the Army of the Andes from Santiago, leading a part over the Andes to Mendoza and leaving the rest on the Chilean side near the entrance to the pass. This measure quickly brought the governments of both Chile and Argentina to terms. His presence east of the Andes intimidated the rebels against the authorities at Buenos Aires, leaving the latter's hands free to aid him, while the O'Higgins party in Chile realised that it could not maintain itself without his support. He required five hundred thousand dollars for the equipment of an army six thousand strong. Chile agreed to furnish three hundred thousand and Argentina the remainder, and he returned to Santiago in the middle of 1819 to complete his arrangements. While actively engaged in preparations word came that civil war had again broken out in the Argentine. San Martin was compelled to make his choice between deferring to an indefinite future his cherished expedition against Peru, or abandoning his native country to probable disintegration. He remained in Chile and though the Argentine government, under whose commission he was acting, had ceased to exist, he did not shrink from the responsibility of disposing of the Army of the Andes. His men cheerfully agreed to follow him, but months went by with little accomplished, and it was not until late in 1820 that he was able to sail for Peru, and then with only four thousand men instead of the six he had counted on. With his departure his influence on the affairs of Chile ceased.
Lord Thomas Cochrane, a very able but very erratic British naval officer, who had gone into politics and got into trouble in his native country, arrived in November, 1818, to take command of the patriot navy. Under his dashing and restless leadership no time was lost in pushing naval operations. The year 1819 was spent in expeditions to the Peruvian and Ecuadorian coast; Callao was repeatedly bombarded, and the Spanish fleet took refuge under the guns of the fortresses, leaving the sea free to the patriots. Failing in a desperate attempt to cut out the Spanish ships from under the very guns of the Callao batteries, Cochrane sent all his vessels except his flag-ship to Valparaiso, and sailed with her for Valdivia, the last port held by the Spaniards on the Chilean mainland. The place was a very Gibraltar of natural strength, and had been well fortified. Nine forts and batteries disposed on both sides of the narrow estuary were garrisoned by over a thousand men; nevertheless Cochrane prepared to capture them by assault with his single ship. Stopping at Talcahuano he took on board two hundred and fifty Chilean soldiers, and was fortunate in finding two smaller ships. His flag-ship stranded; he transferred the marines to the other ships and went on; reaching the Valdivia bar, he landed without giving the Spaniards a moment's time to bring up reinforcements, and at the head of his soldiers and marines he attacked the outermost fort. Though defended by three hundred and sixty men its resistance was short. While Cochrane's main body advanced up a narrow path drawing the garrison's fire, a detachment found a neglected entrance in the rear through which they poured a volley on the defenders. Panic-stricken, the Spaniards fled to the next fort, but the patriots followed so close that no stand could be made. One after another all the forts on the south side of the estuary were rushed. Next day Cochrane's two smaller ships sailed into the harbour under the fire of the northern forts, and soon after the half-disabled flag-ship made her appearance. Seeing the long-boats filling with men and the cannons of the ships ready to open fire, the Spaniards fled to the city and surrendered the following day. This capture deprived the royalists of their last base of operations in Chile, and only the Chiloë Islands and a few scattered guerilla bands among the Indians of Araucania remained faithful.
