The South American Republics. Thomas Cleland Dawson
were all captured, and the Buenos Aires junta immediately ordered the execution of the captured officers and of the anti-Creole chiefs. This barbarous act is a fair sample of the horrible bloodthirstiness of the war between Creoles and Spanish sympathisers. As a rule, both sides slew their prisoners, and the combats were, therefore, incredibly bloody for the numbers engaged.
The Buenos Airean army continued its triumphal march through the provinces of Cordoba and Salta up to the Bolivian mountains. The Creole townspeople reorganised the municipal governments on an anti-Spanish basis, and the army increased like a rolling snowball. Not until it had reached the high lands of Bolivia was serious resistance encountered. On the 7th of November the patriots gained the battle of Suipacha. The Creoles of Bolivia rose, and the Buenos Aireans penetrated rapidly as far as the boundaries of the Viceroyalty. Meanwhile, Manuel Belgrano had led a small expedition to Paraguay. However, the inhabitants of that isolated region showed no disposition to join the Buenos Aireans in their revolutionary movement. The Spanish governor allowed Belgrano to advance nearly to Asuncion, but there his little army was overpowered and forced to surrender on honourable terms. Montevideo's capture seemed essential to the safety of Buenos Aires itself. Spanish ships under the orders of its governor blockaded the river and constantly menaced an attack on the patriot capital. Early in 1811, Artigas with a band of gauchos from Entre Rios crossed the Uruguay and overran the country up to the walls of the fortress, defeating the Spaniards in the battle of Piedras. Re-enforcements came from Buenos Aires, and a siege of Montevideo was begun.
At this juncture news came of a great disaster in the north. The Argentines had at first been joined by Bolivian patriots, but the latter were jealous; and the former, bred on the plains, could not well endure the high altitude, suffering in health and efficiency. The Viceroy of Peru rapidly recruited a considerable army among the sturdy and obedient Indians of the high Peruvian plateau. On the 20th of June, 1811, the patriot army was attacked at Huaqui, near the southern end of Lake Titicaca, and was virtually annihilated. Bolivia was lost to the patriots and Spanish authority was re-established as far down as the Argentine plains.
This great defeat completely changed the attitude of affairs. The Argentines evacuated Uruguay, and the Spanish colonial authorities everywhere took the offensive. The heroic resistance which the Spanish people were now making to the army of Napoleon's marshals encouraged the Viceroy and governor to believe that Ferdinand would soon again be seated on the throne of his fathers. Spanish ships dominated the delta of the Paraná, and the Spanish troops from Montevideo descended at pleasure on the banks of the Plate or its tributaries. The Spanish residents at Buenos Aires plotted against the junta, but their conspiracy was betrayed, and in the middle of 1812 their chiefs, to the number of thirty-eight, mostly wealthy merchants, were arrested and garrotted. The situation of the revolutionary government was so desperate that it is not hard to understand why the junta ruthlessly repressed all signs of disaffection. Victorious Spanish armies threatened them from both Bolivia and Montevideo, and fire in the rear would have been fatal.
In this crisis of their fate, Manuel Belgrano, the great leader of the Buenos Aires Creoles, came to the front. A native of the city, he had been educated in Spain, where he had imbibed liberal principles. On his return he threw himself with all the prestige of his learning, talents, and wealth on the side of the Creoles. His faith in the triumph of liberal principles was unalterable, and he was a more radical advocate of independence than most of his associates. Though without military training, and though his expeditions in Paraguay and Uruguay had not been successful, his prestige and his unwavering confidence in the patriot cause pointed him out as naturally the fittest leader. Again he was entrusted with the command, and went north to Tucuman, where the disheartened fragments of the patriot army were fearfully waiting for the descent of the victorious Spaniards. The inhabitants of Jujuy and Salta had been driven from their homes, and for the first time gaucho horsemen appeared as the principal element of an Argentine army. The junta ordered Belgrano to retire, so as to protect Buenos Aires, but he disobeyed and stuck to Tucuman and let the Spaniards get between him and the capital. With the country up in arms, and the exasperated gauchos harassing his march, the Spanish general did not dare leave Belgrano's army behind him. The Spanish army turned back to Tucuman to finish with the mass of militia there before resuming its march on the capital. To the surprise of South America, the result was a decisive patriot victory. The gaucho cavalry, armed with knives and bolos, mounted on fleet little horses, carrying no baggage, and living on the cattle they killed at the end of each day's march, followed the fleeing Spaniards up into the mountains and inflicted enormous losses. This victory gave the Argentines for another year assurance against invasion by land, and Buenos Aires remained a focus whence anti-Spanish influences could spread over the rest of South America. The patriots again invaded Uruguay, shut up the Spaniards within the walls of Montevideo, and prepared once more to carry the war into Bolivia.
All this while the government at Buenos Aires was involved in internal quarrels. The first junta soon expelled its fiercest, strongest, and most active spirit—Moreno—who seems to have been the only man of the period who foresaw the necessity of establishing a federative form of government. With the disaster of Huaqui the necessity for a more compact executive became urgent. A triumvirate assumed the direction of affairs. Its policy was at once despotic and feeble and satisfied neither federalists, advanced liberals, nor the military element. The latter was becoming daily more predominant. A radical republican society called the "Lautaro," composed largely of young officers, was organised and became virtually a ruling oligarchy. San Martin and Alvear arrived from Europe, and the prestige which they had acquired on European battle-fields at once secured for them prominent positions. When the news of the victory of Tucuman reached the city the military classes revolted, deposed the old triumvirate, and installed a new one. This revolution marked the final triumph of the sentiment of independence. The new government was active in every sense of the word. Belgrano was re-enforced; San Martin was encouraged in his chosen work of forming the nucleus of a disciplined army, fit for offensive warfare; the worn-out pretence of employing Ferdinand's name on public documents was dropped; the inquisition, the use of torture, and titles of nobility were abolished. The Argentine revolution had finally assumed a military and republican character; independence was clearly henceforth its end and purpose.
CHAPTER VI
COMPLETION OF THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
Belgrano followed up his victory at Tucuman by another invasion of the Bolivian plateau. Even to a trained general and a regular army such a campaign would have been difficult. The defective organisation of his hastily gathered militia, his own unfamiliarity with the art of war, and the fact that he was opposed by a clever commander whose army was better drilled and better adapted to operations in that high altitude, all conspired to leave the result in no doubt. October 1, 1813, he was badly defeated at Vilapugio, and six weeks later his army was nearly destroyed at Ayohuma. With the remnant he fled south to Argentine territory and was replaced in his command by San Martin.
The advent of this consummate general and single-minded patriot revolutionised the character of the military operations. Unlike his predecessors and colleagues, he did not concern himself with political ambitions. He had but one purpose—to drive the Spaniards from South America; he knew but one way of achieving it—to whip them on the field of battle. He had none of the brilliantly attractive qualities, none of the eloquence or charm of most South American leaders; he had a horror of display, and made but one speech in all his life.
By sheer force of will and attention to detail, he organised an efficient regular army. The victories that followed were as much due to his painstaking care and foresight as to his brilliant strategical combinations and admirable tactical dispositions.