War of the Pacific
Chile went to war against the allied forces of Bolivia and Peru, bound since 1873 by a secret defensive pact, after Chile occupied the Bolivian port of Antofagasta on 14 February 1879 in retaliation for a Bolivian tax on the Chilean-run nitrate company operating there, in violation of an 1874 boundary treaty. Chile secured naval dominance after the June 1880 loss of the Peruvian ironclad Huascar, allowing it to land troops unopposed along the coast; Chilean forces captured Lima in January 1881, but Peruvian General Andres Avelino Caceres continued a highland guerrilla resistance, the Campana de la Brena, until his defeat at the Battle of Huamachuco in July 1883. The war ended with the October 1883 Treaty of Ancon between Chile and Peru, under which Chile annexed Tarapaca outright and occupied Tacna and Arica pending a later plebiscite, and with an 1884 truce with Bolivia formalised in the 1904 Treaty of Peace and Friendship, under which Bolivia ceded its entire Pacific coastline to Chile and became permanently landlocked.
- Year: 1879 CE
- Category: Military
