page_title: War of the Pacific
section_title: Campaign of Lima
hierarchical_section_title: War of the Pacific / War / Land war / Campaign of Lima
caption_attribution_description: English: Caceres charge en the battle of lima in the pacific war.
context_page_description: The War of the Pacific, also known as the Saltpeter War and by multiple other names, was a war between Chile and a Bolivian–Peruvian alliance from 1879 to 1884. Fought over Chilean claims on coastal Bolivian territory in the Atacama Desert, the war ended with a Chilean victory, which gained for the country a significant amount of resource-rich territory from Peru and Bolivia. The Chilean Army took Bolivia's nitrate-rich coastal region, and Peru was defeated by the Chilean Navy.
  Battles were fought in the Pacific Ocean, the Atacama Desert, the Peruvian deserts, and the mountainous regions in the Andes. For the first five months, the war played out in a naval campaign, as Chile struggled to establish a marine resupply corridor for its forces in the world's driest desert.
  In February 1878, Bolivia imposed a new tax on a Chilean mining company despite Bolivia's express guarantee in the 1874 Boundary Treaty not to increase taxes on Chilean persons or industries for 25 years. Chile protested and solicited to submit the issue to mediation, but Bolivia refused and considered it a subject of Bolivian courts.
context_section_description: The occupation of the southern departments of Peru (Tacna, Arica, and Tarapacá) and the Lynch expedition showed that the army of Peru no longer possessed the skilled military manpower to defend the country. However, nothing could convince the Peruvian government to sue for peace. The defeated allies failed to realize their situation and, despite the empty Bolivian treasury, on June 16, 1880, the Bolivian National Assembly voted to continue the war. On June 11, 1880, a document was signed in Peru declaring the creation of the United States of Peru-Bolivia, but Piérola continued the struggle. W. Sater states, "Had Piérola sued for peace in June 1880, he would have saved countless Peruvian lives and the nation's treasure."
  The Chilean government struggled to satisfy the public demands to end the war and to secure the peace. The situation forced the Chilean government to plan the occupation of Lima.
  Landings on Pisco, Chilca, Curayaco, and Lurín
  Once the size of the Chilean army had been increased by 20,000 men to reach a strength of 41,000 soldiers, deployed from the forts of the Chile–Mapuche frontier to the outskirts of Lima, the Chilean army began the campaign of Lima. Lacking the ships to transport all the troops at once from Arica, the Chileans decided to land a division and then the rest of the army in stages. Their shortage of shipping also precluded an immediate landing at Lima. Instead, Pisco, approximately 320 kilometres (200 mi) south of Lima, was the first landing point.
  On 19 November, 8,800 men, twenty cannons and their supplies reached Pisco. A party of 400 men was landed near the port and they learned that a garrison of 3,000 men defended Pisco. Bypassing it required a landing to be made directly into the port and so a Chilean vanguard was landed in Paracas, ten miles to the south. The force managed to capture Pisco and on November 20 the rest of the Chilean troops landed, later occupying various other nearby coastal cities, securing for the Chileans de facto control of the Peruvian province of Ica.
  On 2 December, 3,500 additional men and 416 horses disembarked in Pisco. Some two weeks later, on 15 December, 14,000 Chilean men, 2,400 horses and mules, and supplies left Arica for the north. Baquedano, the Chilean commander, decided that only one brigade in the Pisco region, Lynch's brigade, would march the 55 miles (89 km) north to the coastal town of Chilca, a town only 45 kilometres (28 mi) from Lima. All other Chilean forces would be re-embarked in Pisco for naval transport to Chilca. The Chilean troops disembarked in Curayaco, slightly north of Chilca, on 22 December 1880. The artillery was later disembarked at Lurín, on the southern outskirts of Lima, as the Chilean army was able to advance quickly after landing.
  Piérola, who had expected a landing north of Lima, ordered the construction of two parallel lines of Peruvian defences, one at Chorrillos and one at Miraflores. It was hoped that the Peruvian professional Army would defeat the Chileans in Chorrillos. If that measure failed, a reserve army, increased with remnants of Chorrillos and the Callao troops, were expected to hold the Chilean advance at Miraflores. The Peruvian forces numbered approximately 25,000 to 32,000 men and were titled the Army of Lima.
  The main Peruvian defense line ran from the seaside resort of Chorrillos through Morro Solar, Santa Teresa, San Juan, the Pamplona (hills) until Monterrico Chico, a line of defence approximately 15 km long. Gatling guns, artillery, covering forts and trenches located along the top of the steeply natural hills (280 m in Morro Solar, 170 m in Sta. Teresa and San Juan) and minefields around the roads to Lima crossing the hamlets of San Juan and Santa Teresa, settlements that the Peruvians anticipated would be important targets of the Chilean attack, all of which were used by the Peruvian military.
  The second line of defense was less strong, consisting of 7 redoubts (one every 800 meters) for infantry and artillery, which the Peruvians hoped would stop any Chilean offensive.
  The Chilean General Staff h
caption: Battle of Miraflores
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