The Pacific War 1879-83

I mentioned this briefly earlier and I’m coming back to it now that I have the Osprey Men-At-Arms book on this topic, though the Stupid Wars book by Strosser & Prince helped out on the basic narrative of the war timeline.  Those guys drip with spite and sarcasm, while Osprey simply says what happened.

So we’ve seen that Bolivia & Paraguay fought to a stalemate in the 1930s in the Chaco War, while Paraguay got its ass kicked by Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay in the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-70).  Rounding out the three major South American wars is this one, from 1879-1883 (though Chile and Peru didn’t actually sign a peace treaty until 1929).

On the dry, desolate Pacific coast of South America, birds tend to poop.  The poop – guano – accumulates.  By the mid-1800s, this guano was in high demand for explosives.   Peru, Chile, and Bolivia – back then, Bolivia still had a Pacific coast – got into an argument about this.

Because the area in question was poorly developed and mostly oriented towards delivering guano to the coast for shipment overseas, naval operations took a primary role at first.  After some confusion when Chile and Peru had ironclads passing each other on the seas, Chile finally defeated Peru’s navy and secured the coastal areas.  This should have ended the war immediately, but neither Bolivia nor Peru conceded defeat.

So the Chileans took on Peru, and managed to defeat that country as well – or at least strategic victories locking up the coast and defeating Peru’s forces – and occupying Lima, the Peruvian capital.  Ever the loyal ally, the Bolivians barely showed up to fight before running away from the coast.

Where things get a bit stupid, is that even now Peru didn’t see fit to surrender.  They took off to the hills to continue a guerilla war.  Eventually the Chileans had to chase them into the Andes and kick their asses there.  Only when NO hope was left did the Peruvians give up – in 1883.

Bolivia lost its Pacific coast and wound up landlocked.   Peru?  Well, Chile and Peru haggled over peace terms until 1929, Peru getting a little bit back at the bargaining table.

And guano? By the time WWI came by, German chemists had finally synthesized the basic chemicals which came from guano, freeing the worlds’ military from dependence on bird poop to fire weapons. 

Uniforms.

Chile.  Its armies looked remarkably like French armies:  dark blue doubled breasted coats, red pants, and blue kepis.  Later they switched to an all-grey version of the same uniform which presumably blended into the surroundings a little better than dark blue and bright red …decades before the French made their switch to horizon blue. 

Bolivia.  All over the place on uniforms.  Different colors, basically taking the stock “coat & kepi” and playing around with multiple colors.  Given the very limited role Bolivian forces played in the war, these soldiers were the least often seen on the battlefield and the least relevant.  

Peru.  Similar to Chile – blue uniforms with either blue or red kepis, switching over to a more neutral grey later.  Both the Chileans and the Peruvians also used some imported German pickelhaubes (spiked helmets) for some units.  Moreover, much of Peru's forces wound up being irregulars anyway, thus not much in the way of "uniforms".