The war between Chile and Peru in 1879 was the result of a quarrel over the nitrate beds near Antofagasta, Bolivia. Chile claimed a treaty existed that gave her merchants the right to work these rich deposits, and upon Bolivia denying the claim, the southern republic seized the port in question. Peru had entered into a pact with Bolivia to protect her against foreign aggression, and Antofagasta was no sooner in the possession of the Chileans than President Prado convened the Peruvian Congress and formally declared war against Chile in April, 1879.
It is a matter of some dispute which side could claim the balance of power on that date. Many of the events of the following six months can be traced to the stupidity of one or two men in power in Peru, and to an element of luck. The allies, Peru and Bolivia, had more troops in the field than did Chile, while Peru’s Navy—Bolivia not owning so much as an armed tug to protect her one seaport—was practically as powerful as the Chilean. The latter’s fighting tonnage totaled 13,124; that of Peru 10,084. Three army divisions were formed by the allies, Peru and Bolivia mustering about 100,000 men against a Chilean army of 60,000 or 70,000.
The Chilean Navy comprised the twin ironclads Blanco Encalada and Almirante Cochrane, the wooden sloop of war Esmeralda, the wooden corvettes O'Higgins, Abtao, Magellanes, and Chacabuco, and the gunboat Covadonga.
Peru had the ironclad turret ship Huascar, the ironclad Independencia, two monitors of the American Civil War type—the Atahuallpa, and the Manco Capac, the wooden corvette Union, the gunboat Pilcomayo and two troop transports, the Chalaco and Limenia.
Peru first attempted to do battle on land, but the Chileans withdrew and the allied forces did not follow. Then a Peruvian fleet sailed in search of the enemy. On one of the ships, the transport Limenia, was President Prado, who was hastening to Arica to take active command of the allied army. The fleet consisted of the Huascar, the Independencia, the Union, the Pilcomayo, and the Limenia. Admiral Migel Grau, an able officer who was a graduate of the French Naval Academy, was in command of the squadron, with the Huascar as his flagship. Captain Moore, an Englishman, commanded the Independencia. Grau set a course well out to sea until the latitude of Arica was reached, when he headed for port.
About the same day that the Peruvian squadron cleared Callao, Rear Admiral Robeledo Williams sailed from Valparaiso with every available ship of the Chilean Navy. He was instructed to steer an inshore course for Callao, with the hope of catching the Peruvian warships at anchor and unprepared. The Chilean fleet appeared off Callao during the night of May 21. Admiral Williams reconnoitered the port, and, finding the Peruvian squadron gone, he hurriedly retraced his course alarmed for the defenseless ports of his country.
On the outward voyage Williams had detached the Esmeralda and the Covadonga at Iquique to blockade that port. On the return trip he hastened to Valparaiso with the Blanco and the Cochrane, believing the Peruvians to be to the southward, and steered well out to sea, again missing the enemy’s fleet. This had appeared off Valparaiso, discovered the Chilean ships gone, and then, troubled with similar fears to those that had caused Williams to leave Callao, had returned northward.
After leaving Valparaiso, Grau looked in on all the seacoast towns until Iquique was reached, and there he found the two wooden ships of the enemy blockading the port. Captain Moore was ordered to attack the Covadonga, and the Huascar set about the destruction of the Esmeralda.
It was a wooden sloop of war against an ironclad; and the thousands who gathered on the beach expected to see only a short, one-sided engagement; but instead they witnessed a contest of nearly four hours’ duration. There was a heavy swell running and the Huascar rolled so that her fire was ineffective. During two and a half hours only two of her shots struck the sloop, and they buried themselves in her soft wooden sides, doing no harm. The Chilean ship had chosen a position close inshore, her commander, Captain Arturo Pratt, seeking shallow water in order to avoid being rammed by the enemy, and also because the Huascar’s shells would fly into the town among her own nationals. However, he was finally driven to sea when the Peruvians dragged a battery of four field guns down to the beach and opened fire at close range. As the Esmeralda steamed out of reach of these guns, Grau steered for the wooden ship at full speed in order to use his ram. The blow proved a weak one, for the ironclad’s engines had been checked too soon, and the ships merely ran foul of each other, their sides grinding for several minutes. During this contact Captain Pratt called for boarders, and sprang on the deck of the Huascar, where he was at once shot down. Only one man followed, and he fell overboard, wounded, just as the ships drew apart.
After standing off some little distance the Huascar again tried to ram, but again the engines were stopped too soon. This collision did no damage, and before the ships cleared, Lieutenant Serrano, following his captain’s example, jumped to the deck of the Peruvian vessel to die amid a hail of rifle fire.
The third attempt to ram was successful, and, under full speed, the Huascar struck the Esmeralda such a destructive blow amidships that the ironclad had just time enough to back away before the wooden sloop went down. She sank bow first, and as the stem still hung above the waves, the notes of the Chilean national anthem, played by a band that had maintained its position on the quarter-deck, was heard by those on shore. The flag, that had been nailed to the masthead, was the last thing to disappear beneath the water.
The Huascar’s boats were lowered, but so bitter was the feeling that many of the men in the water tried to fight their would-be rescuers with knives. The Peruvians retaliated, and many a bobbing head was clubbed beneath the surface by flying oars. Of the Esmeralda’s crew of 300 less than half were saved.
The Huascar was practically undamaged, and after the boats had been hoisted in, Grau hastened after the Independencia which had disappeared around a promontory in her pursuit of the Covadonga.
The little ironclad had no sooner cleared this point than her lookouts discerned close inshore the spars and rigging of a sunken vessel swarming with men. Again the Huascar’s boats were lowered, but Grau did not need their return to learn what ship it was, for his glasses told him that the Independencia was a total wreck.
In trying to overtake the little gunboat, Captain Moore had allowed the light-draft Chilean to coax him into shallow water, where his heavy cruiser struck a reef, tore a gaping hole in her bottom and sank thirty minutes after freeing herself from the rocks. The Covadonga escaped to Valparaiso, bearing the glad tidings that one of Peru’s two powerful ironclads lay beneath the sea. Thus the battle of Iquique, which to those in the city appeared to be a Peruvian victory, was turned into a most disastrous defeat.
Naval men shook their heads when they heard of the loss of the Independencia, but the unthinking populace considered the battle of Iquique a victory. Grau was banqueted and the Peruvian Congress made him a rear admiral, he having been acting rear admiral with the actual rank of captain. At his urgent request he was permitted to retain the command of the Huascar.
After the festivities were over the Peruvians began to view the situation differently and it was generally conceded that Peru’s sole hope at sea rested in the little Huascar. The two monitors, the Atahuallpa and Manco Capac, formerly the United States ships Catawba and Aneota, had been purchased from the United States a few years after the close of the Civil War, and were then believed almost invulnerable. At the beginning of the war they were feared by the Chileans more than were the Independencia and Huascar; but practical tests soon dispelled the illusion. Because of their antiquated, low-powered engines, the monitors were of little use in a seaway and their slow speed made them worthless for running down the nimbler Chilean ships; so they became mere floating batteries and did not figure in naval events. The war at sea, therefore, became a contest between the Huascar, Union, and Pilcomayo for the Peruvians and the full Chilean fleet with the exception of the lost Esmeralda.
In striking contrast with the two Chilean ironclads was the Huascar. The Chilean ships towered high in the water and presented a big target to the enemy; but the Peruvian vessel, even in a seaway, did not show more than six or seven feet of side, and when clearing for action her forward bulwarks could be dropped, exposing a turret and an armored deck that was nearly flush with the water. In all her dimensions, the Huascar was smaller; her guns were a little larger, but this was offset by the greater number possessed by the enemy.
Admiral Grau persuaded President Prado to let him put to sea and harass the enemy. He was permitted to take the Huascar and the Union, but was given strict orders to avoid an action with Chile’s two ironclads.
The two ships left Callao early in July, and for many weeks carried on a destructive series of forays along the Chilean coast. Grau would dart into a harbor with the Huascar, leaving the Union to watch in the offing, destroy such of the enemy’s fortifications as could be reached with his guns between daybreak and sunset, then put to sea before nightfall. In this fashion he sank a few coal ships and damaged some transports lying at anchor, destroyed docks and public buildings in towns that offered resistance and on rare occasions had the satisfaction of shelling a Chilean Army camp.
The news of the Huascar's activities caused much perturbation in Chile. A new minister of war was appointed and numerous changes were made in the personnel of the Navy, the most noteworthy being the appointment of Commodore Rivero as rear admiral in command of the fleet, to succeed Admiral Williams.
The first active move was the sailing of Rivero with the Blanco, the Cochrane, and several wooden ships with the ending of such guerrilla warfare as his mission; and he was instructed to keep the ironclads together as much as possible. But Grau’s method of attack and flight quite baffled the pursuing squadron, and for a month they hunted the Peruvians without success. Several times the Union, as she stood guard in the offing, signaled that smoke could be seen to the southward, and the Huascar hastily put to sea. The low-lying hull of the ironclad enabled her to escape unnoticed and the corvette easily got away, for she was the fastest ship on the coast.
The unexciting nature of their cruise had caused the crew of the Huascar to lose interest in the campaign, but they awakened to new life when, on October 2, Grau announced that they would return to Callao. It was high time that he did so. His little ship’s bottom had become fouled with sea growth and parts of her engines were so worn that it was impossible to proceed at normal full speed, eight knots being about the best the ironclad could do. The coal supply was depleted; and for two weeks no fuel-laden vessels of the enemy had been encountered.
So the Huascar, steaming at half speed, headed for Callao. The Chilean coast was passed; then a stop was made at Antofagasta, where Grau had heard that the Cochrane was at anchor with disabled engines. A reconnaissance proved his information untrue and the Huascar continued on her way.
The night of October 7, 1879, was one of uneventful watches and steady steaming over a peaceful sea, and it was not until after three o’clock in the morning that the lookout on the forecastle, glancing eastward for the first glint of dawn, saw a light ahead that caused him to rub his eyes and look again. He gazed for some time and finally made out a black bulk beneath the light. He hailed the bridge, and the watch lieutenant sprang into the rigging, marine glass in hand. A moment later a messenger hurried below, and in five minutes Admiral Grau, who was only partly dressed, ran to the bridge, carrying a telescope, and made his way up the shrouds to the military top.
One glance was sufficient. He ordered the engines stopped, and the Huascar lay motionless, save for a pendulum-like swaying from side to side. That which the lookout and lieutenant had discovered to be a steamship, the admiral, aided by the powerful telescope, had made out to be a fleet in close sailing order, and the leading ship an ironclad.
At the time of this discovery the Huascar had the land about eight miles off her starboard beam. Thirty miles ahead lay Point Angamos, stretching twelve miles out to sea. The watch officer had been about to order the course changed to round this promontory; when the lookout warned him of the light ahead.
Grau’s observations told him that the vessels to the north were steering a southerly course. After calling his officers about him on the quarter-deck for a conference, the little warship was headed south by west and full speed was again ordered, for Grau, mindful of his orders not to risk a conflict with an enemy ironclad, and fully aware of his vessel’s crippled condition, had decided to retreat as rapidly as possible. It is a matter of record that at first he wished to continue northward and give battle, but his officers urged him to adopt the more conservative plan. Had he followed his first impulse a different story might have been recorded that fateful day—October 8.
By this time the high-sided Chilean ironclad was plainly visible, but Grau trusted that the low build of the Huascar would enable her to escape unobserved. Fortune seemed to smile upon the Peruvian ship, for she had not been on the new course many minutes when a light fog rolled in from seaward, and shut off all view of the fleet to the north. When the vessels were last seen they had hauled to the westward, thus showing that the Huascar had been sighted and that they had started in pursuit. Grau believed he could escape, and, as was later learned, he was making two or three knots more than the Chileans.
The Union, eight or ten miles farther out at sea, had not noticed the maneuvers and Grau did not signal her, for the course she was steering would carry her safely past the enemy. Even if pursued her superior speed would enable her to keep out of danger.
The weather became thicker and the Huascar's head was put more to the westward, then gradually to the north. When she had been steaming in this direction for an hour at an 8-knot speed, her crew went below for breakfast; and, even the admiral, believing that he had avoided the enemy, went to his cabin and began a more suitable toilet. But he had not been absent from the bridge ten minutes when a message from the officer of the watch caused him to hurry back to his station. To the northward the mist had parted, and there was revealed an enemy ironclad with gray, moisture-laden clouds rising on each side of her. She was ten miles distant, and was headed straight for the Huascar, with dense black smoke pouring from her funnel, showing that she was being forced along at full speed.
A glance told Grau that further flight was useless. A loitering fleet was to the northeast, and an ironclad was advancing from the northwest. Grau knew that he must surrender or fight, and he prepared his little ship for battle.
The red, white, and red of Peru was displayed from the gaff and the other vessel replied with the lone-star flag of Chile. Grau correctly decided, from a peculiarity of construction, that the on-coming warship was the Almirante Cochrane.
At nine o’clock the Cochrane was within 3,000 yards, and Grau, having signaled the Union to keep clear of the engagement, entered the conning tower. Not a shot had been fired. These ironclads, armed with guns that could throw a projectile four or five miles, reserved their fire for closer quarters. Five minutes later one of the Huascar’s 10-inch guns thundered and a deluge of spray wet the bow of the Chilean ironclad. The commander of the Cochrane, wishing for closer range, did not reply until three shots had left the turret of the little Peruvian ship. Finally the answer came in the shape of a broadside, and a shell dented the Huascar’s protective belt just above the water line. A moment later the Gatling guns and rifles in the tops of both ships blazed into action and a leaden hail began to patter on the decks, while the great guns hammered incessantly. For fifteen minutes not much was accomplished by the big-gun fire; the projectiles either fell short or were buried in the armor. And then, when the range had diminished to 1,500 yards, a shell from the Cochrane entered the Huascar’s turret, exploded, and killed twelve men. But the places of the dead were quickly taken by men from below, the guns were reloaded and the action renewed. Then the Huascar secured an advantage. One of her 10-inch shells went through a casement aperture on the starboard side of the Cochrane, exploded within, wrecked a gun, and killed practically the entire gun crew. For a few minutes the enemy was in such confusion that he did not fire a shot; and it became almost a panic on the Cochrane when the Huascar edged in closer, her sailors cheering as they again discharged a broadside.
At this stage of the combat victory favored the red, white, and red for a moment; but even as it did so, the commander of the Cochrane saw help which had escaped Grau’s eye. In fact a shot that plowed into the Huascar’s side was the first warning the Peruvian admiral had of assistance coming to the Chileans; looking to starboard through a peephole in the conning tower he saw the Blanco Encalada approaching; while heading seaward were the Matias Cousino and the Covadonga evidently starting off to give chase to the Union, by this time well in the offing, and able to take care of herself because of her superior speed. Grau therefore turned his attention to his own ship, which indeed was in a critical situation.
Seeing aid at hand, the crew of the Cochrane renewed their efforts, and when the Blanco had taken a position to port the engagement became a marine carnage; for the Huascar lay squarely between the fire of the two Chilean ironclads, both so near that the gunners in the turret of the little ship could see the faces of their adversaries.
This turret rapidly became so crowded with the bodies of the dead that the steam-turning gear was clogged and useless and the sun beat down upon the wild scene through air so calm that after the white smoke had belched from the guns, it rose in pillars and clung to the mastheads.
From the first of the battle the encouraging voice of Grau had come to the men in the turret through the speaking tube from the conning tower; but when the Blanco entered the fight, and heavy projectiles struck the Huascar’s sides like the blows of a battering ram, the orders of the commander were no longer heard. The officer in charge of the turret called to his superior through the tube. There was no answer, and when Commander Elias Aguerre ran up the little ladder that led to the tower, he stumbled over the dead body of his admiral. A shell had struck the conning tower, and a fragment had literally sheared Grau’s head from his body. This shell also killed Lieutenant Ferre, the admiral’s aid. Just as the new commanding officer raised the tube flap to give an order, the Huascar staggered, listed over, then shook in every plate, while a concussion more terrific than any thus far told that a shell had burst within the turret. When the fumes had cleared away, a midshipman reported that one of the guns had been wrecked and twenty men killed. The survivors tumbled the bodies through the hatch that opened into the deck below thus releasing the clogged machinery; and other men rushed in, discarding most of their clothes as they jumped to swing the remaining gun into position to fire on one of the enemy ships.
Once more all was silent in the conning tower. Lieutenant Palacios hastened there, but before he could enter he was compelled to push three bodies out of the way. He had barely given his first command when a bullet from the well-aimed rifle of a Marine in an enemy’s top struck him between the eyes. Then the fourth to command the Huascar that day, Lieutenant Pedro Garezon, took the post, and as he did so he called through a hatch, telling the quartermaster to put the helm to port; for he had determined to ram one of the adversaries, and sink with her if necessary. Over and over spun the wheel, but the Huascar’s bows still pointed between the Chileans.
“Port! Port, I say!” screamed the young lieutenant.
“She won’t answer,” came back the weak reply from the wounded survivor of four quartermasters.
“A shot has carried away the steering gear, sir,” reported an ensign; and he dropped dead as the words left his mouth.
The Huascar now lay drifting in an inferno of shot and flame, but the red, white, and red still fluttered from her gaff. One by one, in twos and threes, the men in the turret dropped at their posts; and at last the remaining great gun was silent, its tackle clogged with dead and wounded.
Huddled in a passageway near the engine-room were a score of noncombatants —stewards, pantrymen, and stokers. They were in a place that was lighted only as flashes came from the guns; it was filled with powder smoke, and clouds of steam that drifted from below told that the Huascar’s engines had been damaged. Suddenly they heard a crash, followed by the breaking of the deck, and the little ironclad reeled as if she had struck a reef. Some one passed the word that the main topmast had been shot away. As it came down it brought living men to be dashed to death on the deck below.
There was a cry of “Fire!” and the survivors rushed to stations—perhaps two men to a boat’s crew, one to a pump gang.
“D_____ the fire!” shouted Lieutenant Garezon. “Repel boarders!”
The fire fighters became warriors again, and formed a line of bleeding men, their clothing burned and tattered, and ranged in company front, they awaited the coming of a fleet of the enemy’s boats, which, crowded with marines, were forcing their way through the water toward the wounded, helpless Huascar that lay like a log on the placid sea.
Fire raged between decks and flames licked up the after-companionway from the wreck of the wardroom; when boats had crowded around, the few survivors were compelled to yield to the force of numbers, and the Chileans swarmed the ironclad’s deck. As they overcame the last show of resistance, the tattered red, white, and red still fluttered its rags from the gaff.
The victors had barely gotten control of the flames when word was brought to the officer commanding the boarding party that the prize was sinking. Investigation revealed that the Peruvians had opened the sea cocks and the Chileans were able to close them just as the blood-stained water was lapping the cylinders of the engines.
There is no authentic record of the number slain, but the accounts in Callao were that of 200 men on the Huascar, nearly 100 were killed, and of the remainder only half escaped without injury. The Peruvian dead were consigned to the sea as the Blanco Encalada took the battered, blood-stained Huascar in tow.
After the fight the Huascar was towed into the port of Mejillones, for patching and steering-gear repairs. Two days later she was convoyed to Valparaiso and her entrance into that harbor, with the lone-star flag flying over the red, white, and red, was the first intimation that the Chilean populace had of the capture of the formidable little ship. A week of celebrating was at once begun, and wild scenes were enacted in the seacoast town and in Santiago.
From the day of the capture of the Huascar, October 8, 1879, the Peruvians met with defeat after defeat; but nothing caused so much anger in Callao as the appearance early in the following year, of the Huascar, flying the Chilean flag, as a part of the Chilean squadron that blockaded Peru’s principal seaport.
On December 19, President Prado deserted. Without informing even his most intimate friends of his intention, he left the palace in Lima at two o’clock in the afternoon, went to Callao, was rowed out in the bay, and there boarded the Pacific Steam Navigation Company’s steamer Islay, which sailed an hour later for Panama.
On Monday, January 17, 1881, Lima capitulated, and the war was virtually at an end. Then the map of South America was changed. Bolivia’s bit of seacoast became Chilean territory, and the victors annexed Peruvian soil as far north as Tacna, securing the provinces containing the rich nitrate beds.
To this day at every monthly inspection of the Peruvian fleet, the name of Grau is the first to be heard in the roll call. An officer steps forward, lifts his hat, points upward, and answers:
“Absent, but accounted for. He is with the heroes.”
?
He (the officer) must grasp the fundamental rôle of war in history as the great vehicle of progress, as the great eradicator of egotism, and as a great educator to a spirit of sacrifice and duty.—Munsterberg.