Tarapacá Campaign

The Tarapacá Campaign is a short stage of the War of the Pacific developed in the last months of 1879, after the Chileans won definitive naval superiority at Angamos, and takes its name from the region where it was fought.

After Angamos, the Chilean government began the preparations for an invasion of the Tarapacá Department, a territory rich in nitrates and whose exploitation quarrel began the war. On its favour, Chile had the advantage of mobility, since the Allies could only move supplies and troops by land. Along this campaign both armies had to endure the difficulties of fighting across the desert.

For the Chileans, the goal of the Tarapacá campaign was to secure the department and to hold it as ransom until war reparations were paid once the war ended.

Following the outbreak of war in April 1879, both sides focused on gaining naval superiority, since the extremely arid Atacama Desert was a formidable barrier for a land campaign. Therefore, the war first developed in a confrontation between the navies of Chile and Perú.

After the Chileans seized the port of Antofagasta on February 14, 1879 and secured it with the following victory at Calama on March 23, the focus was to destroy the Peruvian fleet. To achieve that goal, on April the Chilean government ordered Rear Admiral Juan Williams Rebolledo to sail to El Callao to sink the enemy ships on the docks or at anchor. However, since El Callao was heavily defended, Williams decided instead to block the port of Iquique, the most important Allied port in the Tarapacá department, with the idea to force the Peruvians to fight.

However, this proved futile, because the Peruvians didn’t come in rescue of Iquique, and used that precious time to put its navy fit for combat. Besides, the long wait did all the contrary for the Chilean Fleet, wearing down the vessels and the crew’s morale.

The situation tightened the public opinion, which forced Williams to lift the blockade and sail to El Callao. When he arrived, he found that the Peruvian fleet had departed on the 18. All this led to a simultaneous encounter at Punta Gruesa and Iquique on May 21, which proved decisive as the Peruvians lost one of their two modern ships -the ironclad Independencia-, to an old wooden schooner, the Covadonga; and the heroic death of Captain Arturo Prat and the loss of his old corvette, the Esmeralda, lifted the troops morale and ignited a nationalism among the Chileans which led a massive civilian enrolment. Only by the beginning of November, the Chilean Army grew from 2,995 men to 10,000.

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