SAN MARTIN IN EUROPE AND IN AMERICA.
1778--1812.
Jose de San Martin was born on the 25th February, 1778, at the town of
Yapeyu in Misiones, and was the fourth son of Captain Don Juan de San
Martin who was at that time Lieutenant-Governor of the Department of
Yapeyu. When he was eight years old the family went to Spain, and he
became a pupil in the Seminary of Nobles at Madrid, where he remained
only two years, and learned little beyond the rudiments of mathematics
and something of drawing. Before he was twelve years old, he joined the
“Murcia” regiment as a cadet. The uniform of this regiment was white and
blue, the same colours the mature soldier afterwards carried in triumph
over half a continent.
His first campaign was in Africa, where he received his baptism of fire
in battle against the Moors. When in garrison at Oran in 1791, the city,
at that time besieged by the Moors, was destroyed by an earthquake. In
1793 he joined the army of Aragon, and served under Ricardos against the
republicans of France on their own territory. This experience was of
great value to him, as Ricardos was the best tactician among the Spanish
generals of that day. After two successful actions at Masden and
Truilles, Ricardos was forced to retire to the foot of the mountains,
where he maintained his position for twenty days against the constant
attacks of the enemy, and San Martin so distinguished himself that he
was promoted to the rank of sub-lieutenant.
In the following May, after the death of Ricardos, the “Murcia” formed
part of the garrison of Port Vendres, which, after beating off two
attacks of the French, was forced to retreat to Collioure and there
surrendered. San Martin gained another step by his conduct in these
affairs.
In 1795 the peace of Basilea freed the young lieutenant from his
_parole_. In the following year his father died, and the treaty of San
Ildefonso brought Spain as an ally of the French republic into collision
with Great Britain. On the 14th February, 1797, the “Murcia,” on board
the Spanish Mediterranean squadron, took part in the disastrous affair
off Cape Saint Vincent. On the 15th August, 1798, San Martin was marine
officer on the _Santa Dorotea_, when that ship was captured after a
desperate defence, by the English 64-gun ship _Lion_, and being thus for
the second time debarred from active service, he devoted his leisure to
the study of mathematics and drawing.
In the year 1800 at the head of a company of his old regiment, he took
part in the serio-comic war with Portugal known as the “War of the
Oranges,” and was present at the siege of Olivenza. After the Peace of
Amiens in 1802, his regiment was employed in the blockade of Gibraltar
and Ceuta, and in 1804 we find him in garrison at Cadiz, as second
captain of a light infantry regiment, where his conduct during a
pestilence was as honourable to him as had been his conduct in the
field.
By the Treaty of Fontainebleau, in 1807, France and Spain divided
Portugal and her colonies between them, and a column of 6,000 Spanish
troops under Solano invaded Portugal. The regiment to which San Martin
was attached, captured the town of Yelves, but took no further part in
the campaign.
The _émeute_ of the 2nd May at Madrid, gave the signal for an outbreak
of popular indignation, against the usurpations of Napoleon. The news
reached the army of Solano when on the march for Cadiz. Solano was at
first undecided what course to adopt, but his appointment as
Captain-General of Andalucia and Governor of Cadiz being confirmed by
the French, he on the 28th May issued a proclamation condemning the
insurrection. The people flocked in crowds to the palace, shouting for
an immediate attack upon the French squadron lying in the harbour; in
the confusion some shots were fired. San Martin, who was officer of the
guard, withdrew his troops into the house and closed the door. It was
blown in by a cannon-shot, but time had been gained for the escape of
Solano across the roof to a neighbouring house, where, however, he was
soon afterwards found and cruelly butchered.
This tragedy was never effaced from the memory of San Martin, and
without doubt greatly affected his policy on many subsequent occasions.
In spite of his love of liberty he ever after looked with horror upon
mobs, and upon governments who relied upon them. He considered that
intelligence supported by orderly strength should hold the government of
the world. Nevertheless his reason and his heart must have told him that
the cause of Spain was just, and that the executions on the Prado of
Madrid on the 2nd May were more barbarous and less justifiable than was
the murder of Solano.
About this time it is said that Miranda visited Cadiz in disguise, but
for this report we can find no foundation. He was the founder and
organiser of the secret societies to which South Americans throughout
Europe were already affiliated, but Spain was the last country in Europe
in which such societies were established. Cadiz being the one port open
to American trade, became naturally at this time the centre of the
revolutionary propaganda.
In the early years of the nineteenth century an association styled
“Sociedad de Lautaro,” or “Caballeros Racionales,” had ramifications all
over Spain, and was affiliated with the “Gran Reunion Americana”
established in London by Miranda. This society had in Cadiz alone in the
year 1808 more than forty members, some of them grandees of Spain. Those
of the first grade were pledged to work for the independence of America;
those of the second swore “to recognise no government in America as
legitimate unless it was elected by the free and spontaneous will of the
people, and to work for the foundation of the republican system.” Of
this society San Martin became a member. An American by birth, a
revolutionist by instinct, and a republican by conviction, he was,
perchance, without knowing it, an adept of Miranda, and was destined to
make the dream of the master a reality, when the bones of that master
lay rotting on the mud banks upon which his eye might at this time often
rest.
At the same time with San Martin three other members joined the lodge;
Alvear, who was his confidant till he became jealous of his fame; José
Miguel Carrera, who was to die cursing him; and, most modest of all, the
naval lieutenant Matias Zapiola, who was afterwards his right arm on
many a hard-fought field. San Martin was the least brilliant and the
poorest of them all; his comrades recognised the superiority of his
talents as a soldier, and said that he did the thinking for them all,
but in the great revolutionary drama that all foresaw they assigned to
him only the place of a stern warrior; Alvear and Carrera, the most
arrogant and the most ambitious, were to be the heroes.
The general rising in Spain found San Martin in his place as an officer
of light infantry under the command of Colonel Menacho. He was soon
promoted, and his regiment joined the second division of the army of
Andalucia, commanded by the Marquis of Coupigni. When the French under
Dupont crossed the Sierra Morena, he was placed in charge of the line of
the Guadalquivir. On the 28th June, 1808, he led a mixed column against
the advanced guard of the enemy, and charged a detachment of cavalry
with such impetuosity at the head of twenty-one hussars, that he killed
seventeen of the enemy, took four prisoners and all their horses, and
retired in triumph, in the face of very superior numbers. This action
was greatly applauded by the whole army, a badge of honour was given to
all who charged with him, and he was appointed captain in the Bourbon
regiment “on account of distinguished conduct in the action at
Argonilla.”
This small triumph was the precursor of one of the greatest victories of
the epoch. Before one month had elapsed, the imperial eagles of Napoleon
were beaten by an army of recruits inspired by patriotism, and Captain
San Martin was mentioned with distinction in the order of the day of the
battle of Baylen.
The road to Madrid being opened by this victory the army of Andalucia
entered the capital in triumph, and San Martin received, with his
commission as lieutenant-colonel, a gold medal for his conduct in the
battle.
He was afterwards present at the disaster of Tudela, and in the retreat
to Cadiz, and in 1810 was appointed aide-de-camp to the Marquis of
Coupigni. In 1811 he took part in the bloody battle of Albuera, where
the French were defeated by an allied army under General Beresford, the
same who five years previously had capitulated to Liniers at Buenos
Ayres. The same year he joined the Sagunto regiment, the escutcheon of
which was a sun with this motto “Hœ nubila tolunt obstantia
solvens”--dissipates clouds and removes obstacles. This was the last
Spanish standard under which San Martin fought, and its symbol was
identical with that of the flag of the as yet unthought of army of the
Andes.
The prophecy of the dying Pitt was realised. Napoleon had stirred up
against himself a national war and was irremediably lost. Spain allied
with Great Britain, in saving herself, saved Europe from his brutal
domination, and the American Creole having paid with usury his debt to
the mother country could now honourably leave her. San Martin had fought
under her flag for twenty years, he had seen the strategy of great
generals, had learned the tactics of every arm in the service; the pupil
was now a master able to give lessons. He turned his eyes to his own
country, and seeing her in difficulty resolved to return and consecrate
his life to her service.
The confidant of his projects and sentiments on this occasion was a
singular personage. Lord Macduff, afterwards Earl of Fife, was a Scotch
noble descended from that Shakespearean hero who slew Macbeth. He was in
Vienna when the Spanish insurrection broke out in 1808, he came over at
once and enlisted as a simple volunteer. As such he took part in most of
the great battles of the time, in one of which he was seriously wounded,
and was given the rank of a General of Spain for his services. Then it
was that San Martin and Macduff became acquainted; their generous
natures had a profound sympathy each for the other, their friendship was
enhanced by the dangers they shared, and continued so long as both
lived. By his help and by the interposition of Sir Charles Stuart, a
diplomatic agent in Spain, San Martin obtained a passport for London,
and received from his friend letters of introduction, and letters of
credit of which he made no use.
In London he met his comrades Alvear and Zapiola, and other South
Americans who were there at the time. All belonged to the secret society
founded in London by Miranda, in which Bolívar had just taken the oath,
before leaving for Venezuela in company with the illustrious master. San
Martin and his two comrades were initiated in the fifth and last grade,
and in January, 1812, embarked on the _George Canning_ for the River
Plate. On the 9th March they reached Buenos Ayres, accompanied by
various officers who came to offer their swords in the cause of
independence.
The moment was a critical one in the history of the American
revolution; the serious work was just commencing; the real struggle
between Patriots and Royalists was yet to come, and the discordance of
the various elements of society only now became apparent.
The Argentine revolution had provoked insurrection in Chile, both by
diplomacy and by example. Her first army of volunteers had marched to
Upper Peru with the object of striking the enemy in the centre of his
power; and in November, 1810, had won the first victory of the war at
Suipacha, but was eight months later defeated at Huaqui, and compelled
to retreat to Tucuman. Buenos Ayres had attempted to gain command of the
rivers by arming a small squadron, which was destroyed by the enemy in
the Paraná. A Portuguese army of four thousand men held the line of the
Uruguay. Paraguay had commenced a system of isolation, almost of
hostility.
The movement in Chile, at first successful, was in 1812 threatened by an
expedition from Peru, and the young Republic unfortunately put her trust
in José Miguel Carrera, who, with some attractive qualities, possessed
no solid talents, either military or political.
In this same month of March an earthquake destroyed the city of Caracas.
Reaction triumphed over Miranda in Venezuela; only in New Granada did
the revolutionary cause maintain a footing for some time longer. In 1815
all the insurrections in South America had been suppressed, save only
the Argentine revolution, which was never overpowered.
Meantime the viceroyalty of Peru, holding a central position, with a
strong army and the command of the sea, was the centre of reaction; and
the masses of the people not yet implicated in the revolution, began to
look unfavourably upon it, as their eyes were opened to the perils it
invoked and to the sacrifices it involved.
The Argentine revolution had as yet no fixed plan. In so rudimentary a
state of society the actual leaders had but little power to direct the
latent strength of the people, and even among themselves opinions were
divided, some believing that the centralisation of power in the city of
Buenos Ayres was the only means of ensuring the success of the
revolutionary movement, while to others decentralization seemed the one
necessary condition of national life. The revolution arose in the
cities; its legality was based upon municipal rights, and could not long
maintain its original form. It could only live by a wider popularity
based upon the sovereignty of the people at large. Fortunately the men
at this time at the helm were the most intelligent, energetic, and
foreseeing who ever acted together on this stage.
The first Executive Government, installed on the 25th May, 1810, was a
Junta, in imitation of those established in Spain to resist the
domination of the French. Modified a year later by the admission of
deputies from the provinces, it became a many-headed monster, useless
alike for debate and for administration. It was succeeded by a
Triumvirate under the name of “The Executive Government,” which, by the
aid of those men, saved the State from shipwreck.
Such was the situation of THE UNITED PROVINCES OF THE RIVER PLATE when
SAN MARTIN landed on Argentine soil.
Twenty-six years before, while yet a child, he had left his native land;
now he returned in the ripeness of manhood, tempered in the struggles of
life, tutored in the art of war, initiated in the mysteries of secret
societies formed for the propagation of the new ideas of liberty. The
new champion brought to the American cause tactics and discipline
applied both to politics and to war; and, in embryo, a vast plan for a
continental campaign which should embrace half a world and should result
in its independence.
It has been said that San Martin was not a man but a mission, and, in
truth, seldom has the influence of one man upon the destinies of
humanity been greater than was his. He was at once the arm and the head
of the Argentine hegemony; he combined the evolutions of armies with
those of nations, marking each evolution with some achievement either
political or military; obtained great results with the least possible
means, and without waste of strength; and showed how a people may be
redeemed without being oppressed. His character is even yet an
historical enigma.
The grandeur of those whose names attain immortality is measured not so
much by their deeds or by their talents as by the effect their memory
has upon the consciences of men, causing them to vibrate from one
generation to another in sympathy with an idea or with a passion. The
moral grandeur of San Martin consists in this: that nothing is known of
the secret ambitions of his life; that he was in everything
disinterested; that he confined himself strictly to his mission; and
that he died in silence, showing neither weakness, pride, nor bitterness
at seeing his work triumphant and his part in it forgotten.
San Martin was a man of stalwart frame; his face was the reflex of his
mind, a fiery spirit hidden under a studious reserve of manner, which at
times exploded. His head, which was of medium size, he carried very
erect. His thick black hair he always wore cut short; the straight high
forehead indicated the presence of a strong and healthy brain. The
darkness of his complexion was deepened by exposure; his large black
eyes were fringed by long lashes and overhung by heavy eyebrows, which
met when he frowned; these eyes were the characteristic feature of his
face, disclosing the intensity of his nature, but hiding his purpose.
His nose was long, aquiline, and prominent; mouth small, with firm red
lips; teeth strong and white. His chin and jaw showed strength of will
and the absence of animal passions. His voice was rough, his gestures
simple, and his whole person inspired at once respect and sympathy.[7]
San Martin gave verbal orders with great precision, and in ordinary
conversation was fond of a joke. He wrote laconically in a style of his
own, and was much given to reading French authors. Very reserved and of
warm affections, he was a great observer of men, studying how he might
best avail himself of such talents as they possessed. Haughty by nature,
unobtrusive both by temperament and by system, he forced upon himself a
stoical disregard of injuries. He was studiously moderate, and patient
in the elaboration of his plans. A slave to duty himself, he was
tolerant of human frailty in others, but could be severe when severity
was requisite. He was, as with truth and with posthumous justice he has
been styled by Vicuña Mackenna, “the greatest of the Creoles of the New
World.”
[Illustration: I.--MAP OF THE VICEROYALTY OF LA PLATA AND OF THE KINGDOM
OF CHILE, EXCLUDING UPPER PERU AND SOUTHERN PATAGONIA.]