THE WAR IN THE NORTH.
1814.
The Army of the North when reinforced, barely numbered 2,000 men, mostly
recruits, among whom desertion was frequent. Disorganized, short of
officers, and badly clothed, it was quite incapable of making head
against the enemy. Jujui and Salta were held by the victorious
Spaniards, who threatened the whole of the northern frontier. San Martin
was more especially troubled by the lack of officers and the general
want of discipline in the troops.
Pezuela, the Spanish general who had defeated Belgrano at Vilcapugio and
Ayohuma, had established his headquarters at Tupiza on the frontier of
Upper Peru, and ordered a levy of two to three thousand men in the
Highlands of Lower Peru. He also formed two battalions out of
contingents from the nearer valleys of Chichas and Ciuti, raising his
army to about four thousand regulars. His vanguard under Ramirez, one
thousand five hundred to two thousand strong, with eight guns, occupied
Jujui, and his cavalry scoured the country as far as Salta. San Martin’s
outposts also reached almost to this city, and at this time the men of
the city and of the country round about, rose _en masse_ and formed a
sort of vanguard to the Army of the North.
San Martin had at that time no regular plan, he neither knew his own
resources nor the designs of the enemy, and confined his efforts to the
reorganization of the army. After consultation with Colonel Dorrego, who
commanded the advanced posts, he determined to confide these positions
to the district militia and to concentrate his regular forces in
Tucuman. In carrying out this plan he received most valuable assistance
from the devotion of the country people, who masked all his movements
and prevented the enemy from discovering anything either of his
intentions or of his strength.
His first step was the construction of an entrenched camp to the north
of the city, which put a stop to desertion, and he increased the number
of his troops by recruiting. Here he stood on the defensive and limited
his efforts to aiding the popular movements in Salta, Cochabamba, and
Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
In this entrenched camp, which is known to history as the citadel of
Tucuman, he established a school of instruction, holding up the mounted
grenadiers as a model for the rest of his force. Belgrano was a most
docile pupil, but Dorrego, though his talents were highly esteemed by
San Martin, was sent off to Santiago del Estero for insubordinate
conduct. Belgrano soon afterwards left the army, giving as his last
advice to his friends the maxim, “that war must be waged not with arms
alone but with the force of public opinion,” which maxim was at that
time exemplified by facts, for the Royalist armies held only the ground
on which they stood, and their movements were paralyzed by the popular
insurrections all around them.
In the Province of Salta the revolutionary movement was most pronounced.
The first popular manifestation in the city produced the organization of
the civic militia. In 1810 the urban guard was raised by the voluntary
enlistment of youths of respectable families. Then arose spontaneously
among the peasants of the campaña, a corps of cavalry, with the
instincts of the Cossacks, and the qualities of the Mamelukes, headed by
a chieftain who made his name famous for deeds of prowess.
MARTIN GÜEMES had first borne arms against the English in the reconquest
of Buenos Ayres in 1806 and in the memorable defence of 1807. He with
his men, formed the vanguard of the first Patriot army which invaded
Upper Peru. His horsemen penetrated as far as Potosi, and covered every
movement of the Patriots. At Suipacha he did good service. In 1811 he
escorted the prisoners of the campaign to Buenos Ayres, where he was
appointed to the general staff with the rank of captain. In 1813 he took
part in the second siege of Monte Video, and was absent from his native
province at the time of Belgrano’s expedition, but when San Martin took
command of the army he was at Santiago del Estero on his way back.
The insurrection of Salta in the face of the victorious enemy, was
carried out with equal deliberation and courage. The population
emigrated _en masse_, the peasants abandoned their huts and the towns
were left desolate. In the capital even the tongues were taken from the
church bells, lest the enemy should use them to celebrate their
victories. Two old friars alone remained in each convent to administer
the sacraments to the sick and aged who could not go away.
When the Royalist vanguard occupied the city of Salta a lieutenant,
named Ezenarro, was detached with thirty men to occupy a district
thirty-two miles to the south in the valley of Lerma. The first Sunday
after his arrival, one of the men of the place after morning mass,
said:--
“We must rise against this canalla.”
“With what arms?” asked another.
“With those we take from them,” said yet another.
A proprietor, named Luis Burela, put himself at their head, surprised
the guard, disarmed Ezenarro and his men, and sent them prisoners to
Tucuman. Then, with the arms they had captured, they marched to within
ten miles of Salta, where they were met by a company of Spanish troops,
whom they charged at once, and completely routed, taking most of the men
with their leader prisoners, and sending them also to Tucuman. Another
proprietor, named Pedro Zabala, followed the example of Burela, armed
his peons and some volunteers and took the field.
So began the resistance to the enemy, in which the whole people speedily
joined, so that Salta became a bulwark to the United Provinces
impregnable to Royalist arms, solely by the force of public opinion
roused to action.
The Province of Salta, which at that time formed a part of the
jurisdiction of Jujui, enters within the first spurs of the Andes which
branch from the second of the two ranges which enclose Upper Peru, and
has the same physical characteristics, plains, mountains, and an
intermediate tropical zone. Its possession was thus of great importance
to the invaders, as it was the gate to Argentine territory. The
occupation of Jujui opened the road to the plains and valleys of Salta,
but even the occupation of Salta itself did not secure their position.
The agricultural lands, from which alone supplies could be drawn, lay in
valleys to the south of the capital, and it was this part of the
Province the guerillas undertook to defend. The nature of the country
eminently adapted it to guerilla warfare. The inhabitants were a
hard-working race of men, strong, active, and inured to hardships,
individually brave, and with a natural instinct for the class of warfare
they waged. They were horsemen, accustomed to go either up or down hill
at full speed, whose ordinary equipment enabled them to gallop unharmed
through thorny brushwood. They were good marksmen, either from the
tree-tops or from horseback, or on foot from behind their horses if need
were. San Martin made no mistake when he entrusted to them the task of
keeping the Royalists at bay while he was engaged in the reorganization
of the regular army at Tucuman. He had seen in Spain what might be
accomplished by this class of irregular troops.
Pezuela, deceived by false despatches which San Martin caused to fall
into his hands, believed that these raw levies were the vanguard of the
Patriot army advancing on Salta, and in consequence lost much valuable
time waiting for reinforcements.
In March the Royalist vanguard advanced from Salta into the valley of
Lerma, in search of supplies, under the command of Colonel Saturnino
Castro, a native of Salta, who had the repute of being the first cavalry
officer of the Royalist army of Peru, and whose valour had decided the
day at Vilcapugio. The guerillas, who became known to history as the
GAUCHOS of Salta, greatly harassed the progress of the expedition,
swarming in the woods along the line of march, cutting off stragglers,
driving in small detachments, and firing upon the main body from any
convenient shelter.
On the 24th, videttes on the Guachipas River at the end of the valley,
descried fifty-six of the enemy, under Captain Fajardo, approaching
them. Captain Saravia collected thirty men armed with short muskets, and
a group of peasantry with clubs and pikes, charged upon them and
completely routed them, killing eleven including the captain, and making
twenty-seven prisoners, while he had only three men killed and one
wounded.
Meantime Güemes had entered the Sierra to the east of Salta, and on the
9th and 18th, two parties of his Gauchos surprised two detachments of
the enemy. On the 29th he came so close to the city that Castro sallied
out against him for about a league with eighty men, but was completely
routed, with the loss of half his force.
For this feat Güemes was named Commandant-General of the Vanguard, and
on the recommendation of San Martin, was raised to the rank of
Lieutenant-Colonel.
Güemes then occupied the approaches to the city and harassed the
garrison by daily attacks upon the suburbs. Being reinforced from Jujui,
the Royalists then organised two expeditions of 500 men each. One,
composed of a battalion of infantry and a squadron of light horse under
Colonel Alvarez, marched early in June into the valley of Lerma. At the
town of Sumalao, Alvarez found the vanguard of the Guachipas awaiting
him. The Patriot outposts were driven in, but the main body sheltered by
trees and broken ground, poured so heavy a fire upon him that he was
forced to return to the city, with many killed and wounded, and with the
loss of all the supplies he had seized.
The other column, also composed of infantry and cavalry, was under the
command of Colonel Marquiegui, who like Castro was a native of Salta,
and of great repute for skill and knowledge of the country. This column
marched to the east and was met by Güemes in person, who made so
stubborn a resistance that it was also forced back to the city, and the
siege was re-established.
Pezuela had drawn in his reserves and advanced to Jujui. Thence he sent
orders to Colonel Marquiegui to march with one hundred infantry and one
hundred and fifty horse, by the north-eastern frontiers of Tucuman and
Santiago del Estero, to the rear of the advanced guard of the Patriots
on the river Pasaje. Marquiegui carried out his instructions with great
skill, captured several forts, and learned from prisoners that the army
of San Martin consisted only of three thousand recruits, and that the
vanguard which gave them so much trouble, was nothing but a swarm of
undisciplined Gauchos; but he also learned that the object of the
campaign, which was the relief of Monte Video, was now impossible, that
city having already fallen.
When news of this expedition reached Tucuman, Güemes was immediately
reinforced by one hundred infantry and one hundred mounted grenadiers,
and Marquiegui retreated, marching one hundred leagues in a semicircle,
but was prevented from carrying off either horses or cattle.
This was the last attempt at invasion; five thousand men were not enough
to capture Tucuman, much less to conquer the country. Pezuela withdrew
his troops beyond the frontier, and sent off a strong detachment to
Cuzco to crush an insurrection which had broken out in that city.
The object of the Royalist invasion was, by a powerful diversion, to
compel the Argentine Government to withdraw their army from the Banda
Oriental for the protection of the northern provinces, but meantime that
government had armed and equipped a small naval force, which, under the
command of an Irishman named BROWN, had, on the 16th May, defeated and
almost destroyed the Spanish squadron stationed at Monte Video, which
city soon after surrendered to the Argentine army then besieging it
under the command of Alvear.
Before the conclusion of these events, the General of the Army of the
North had disappeared from the theatre of war. San Martin, after careful
study of the question, had clearly discerned that the road by Upper Peru
was not the true strategical line of the South American revolution. His
idea was to carry the war to the West, to pass the Andes, to occupy
Chile, to secure the dominion of the Pacific, and to attack Lower Peru
on the flank, continuing military operations to the North merely as a
subordinate detail of the main design.
This plan, the merits of which were not appreciated by his
contemporaries until it was crowned with victory, is looked upon by
posterity as not merely the most simple, but as the only possible plan
which could give the desired result. It was then held to be folly,
whilst in reality the folly lay in persevering in the attempt to reach
Lima with insufficient means and by an impracticable route. Knowing that
it would be looked upon as folly, San Martin kept his idea to himself,
as _his secret_, as he himself styled it in confidential intercourse,
waiting to disclose it for the day when he should hold in his hand the
thunderbolt which was to shatter the power of Spain in America. Three
months after taking command of the Army of the North, he wrote to his
friend, Don Nicolas Rodriguez Peña:--
“Don’t flatter yourself with thinking of what I can do here. I shall do
nothing, and nothing here pleases me. Our country can do nothing more
here than act on the defensive, for which war the brave Gauchos of
Salta suffice, if aided by two squadrons of regular troops. To think
otherwise is to throw men and money into an abyss. I have already told
you _my secret_. A small, well-disciplined army in Mendoza, to cross to
Chile and finish off the Goths there, aiding a government of trusty
friends to put an end to the anarchy which reigns. Allying our forces,
we shall then go by sea to Lima. This is our course, and no other.”
This idea, which was a secret in 1814, and which would, if divulged,
have caused its author to be looked upon as a lunatic, is the idea which
has given San Martin his place in the history of the world, and which
finally changed the destinies of South America.
With such plans in his head, San Martin could not rest content with the
command of the Army of the North. Further, his rival, Alvear, after
crowning himself with the laurels of victory at Monte Video, aspired
also to those of Peru. Doubtless, with his enterprising character and
sparks of genius, he would have broken the routine of the previous
campaigns, and San Martin was willing to yield his post to him, asking
for himself, as for a resting-place, the government of the obscure
province of Mendoza, by which he threw dust in the eyes, not only of the
enemies of America but also in those of his own friends, imitating the
tactics of William the Silent, to whose character his own bears some
analogy.
In addition he was, towards the end of April, attacked by an affection
of the lungs, which obliged him to leave Don Francisco Fernandez de la
Cruz in command of the army, and to retire, by the advice of his
physician, to the Sierra of Cordoba, in search of a drier climate.
On the 10th August, 1814, the ex-General of the Army of the North was
appointed Governor of Cuyo. From that moment he lived only for his idea.
Mendoza was the starting-point in the realization of his plans; it was
the soil whence sprang the legions which were to liberate America.