on the side of the Creoles. His faith in the triumph of liberal principles was unalterable, and he was a more radical advocate of independence than most of his associates. Though without military training, and though his expeditions in Paraguay and Uruguay had not been successful, his prestige and his unwavering confidence in the patriot cause pointed him out as naturally the fittest leader. Again he was entrusted with the command, and went north to Tucuman, where the disheartened fragments of the patriot army were fearfully waiting for the descent of the victorious Spaniards. The inhabitants of Jujuy and Salta had been driven from their homes, and for the first time gaucho horsemen appeared as the principal element of an Argentine army. The junta ordered Belgrano to retire, so as to protect Buenos Aires, but he disobeyed and stuck to Tucuman and let the Spaniards get between him and the capital. With the country up in arms, and the exasperated gauchos harassing his march, the Spanish general did not dare leave Belgrano's army behind him. The Spanish army turned back to Tucuman to finish with the mass of militia there before resuming its march on the capital. To the surprise of South America, the result was a decisive patriot victory. The gaucho cavalry, armed with knives and bolos, mounted on fleet little horses, carrying no baggage, and living on the cattle they killed at the end of each day's march, followed the fleeing Spaniards up into the mountains and inflicted enormous losses. This victory gave the Argentines for another year assurance against invasion by land, and Buenos Aires remained a focus whence anti-Spanish influences could spread over the rest of South America. The patriots again invaded Uruguay, shut up the Spaniards within the walls of Montevideo, and prepared once more to carry the war into Bolivia.
All this while the government at Buenos Aires was involved in internal quarrels. The first junta soon expelled its fiercest, strongest, and most active spirit—Moreno—who seems to have been the only man of the period who foresaw the necessity of establishing a federative form of government. With the disaster of Huaqui the necessity for a more compact executive became urgent. A triumvirate assumed the direction of affairs. Its policy was at once despotic and feeble and satisfied neither federalists, advanced liberals, nor the military element. The latter was becoming daily more predominant. A radical republican society called the "Lautaro," composed largely of young officers, was organised and became virtually a ruling oligarchy. San Martin and Alvear arrived from Europe, and the prestige which they had acquired on European battle-fields at once secured for them prominent positions. When the news of the victory of Tucuman reached the city the military classes revolted, deposed the old triumvirate, and installed a new one. This revolution marked the final triumph of the sentiment of independence. The new government was active in every sense of the word. Belgrano was re-enforced; San Martin was encouraged in his chosen work of forming the nucleus of a disciplined army, fit for offensive warfare; the worn-out pretence of employing Ferdinand's name on public documents was dropped; the inquisition, the use of torture, and titles of nobility were abolished. The Argentine revolution had finally assumed a military and republican character; independence was clearly henceforth its end and purpose.
CHAPTER VI
COMPLETION OF THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
Belgrano followed up his victory at Tucuman by another invasion of the Bolivian plateau. Even to a trained general and a regular army such a campaign would have been difficult. The defective organisation of his hastily gathered militia, his own unfamiliarity with the art of war, and the fact that he was opposed by a clever commander whose army was better drilled and better adapted to operations in that high altitude, all conspired to leave the result in no doubt. October 1, 1813, he was badly defeated at Vilapugio, and six weeks later his army was nearly destroyed at Ayohuma. With the remnant he fled south to Argentine territory and was replaced in his command by San Martin.
The advent of this consummate general and single-minded patriot revolutionised the character of the military operations. Unlike his predecessors and colleagues, he did not concern himself with political ambitions. He had but one purpose—to drive the Spaniards from South America; he knew but one way of achieving it—to whip them on the field of battle. He had none of the brilliantly attractive qualities, none of the eloquence or charm of most South American leaders; he had a horror of display, and made but one speech in all his life.
By sheer force of will and attention to detail, he organised an efficient regular army. The victories that followed were as much due to his painstaking care and foresight as to his brilliant strategical combinations and admirable tactical dispositions. Because he thought another could finish his work better than himself he voluntarily resigned supreme power on the very eve of the campaign which expelled the last Spaniard from South America, and, disdaining to offer an explanation, went into life-long exile. So modest was he that his name and services well-nigh fell into oblivion. That he is now recognised as the saviour of South American liberty is due as much to the literary labours of the greatest of Argentine historians, Bartolomé Mitre, as to the spontaneous opinion of his countrymen during the first decades after his retirement.
General San Martin was born on the 25th of February, 1778, in a little town which had been one of the Jesuit missions far up the Uruguay River. His mother was a Creole and his father a Spanish officer, who destined his son to his own profession. When a child of only eight, he was taken to the mother country and educated in the best military schools of Spain. At an early age he entered the army and served in all the many wars in which Spain engaged after the outbreak of the French Revolution. He saw much active service and became a thorough master of his profession. He imbibed liberal ideas and joined a secret society pledged to the work of establishing a republic in Spain and independent governments in her colonies. When the Spanish people rose against the French conquests, San Martin threw himself heart and soul into the conflict on the side of the patriots, and distinguished himself in the battles that opened the way to the recovery of Madrid. He was promoted to a lieutenant-colonelcy, but the next year he resigned his commission to return to his native land to aid her in her fight for independence. By a curious coincidence the ship that bore the South American who achieved the independence of his country was called the George Canning, after the European who, thirteen years later, did most to secure the independence of South America from external attack. He landed in Buenos Aires in March, 1812. At that moment the anti-Spanish revolution seemed everywhere to be on the point of suffocation. Bolivia and Uruguay were lost; the reaction was gaining ground in Venezuela; Chile was menaced by an army from Lima and shortly fell back into Spanish hands; Peru was steady for the old system. Only in Argentina and New Granada were the fires of insurrection still burning, and between them intervened Peru, the stronghold of Spanish power in South America—a citadel impregnable behind mountains, deserts, and the ocean. The War of Independence could only succeed by aggressive campaigns which must be conducted through difficult country and over the whole continent, and against forces superior in both numbers and equipment.
San Martin's first step was to organise and drill some good regiments in Buenos Aires. He selected the finest physical and moral specimens of youth that the province afforded and subjected them to a rigid discipline. After his ruthless pruning only the born soldiers remained, and this select corps furnished generals and officers for the wars that followed. On succeeding Belgrano in command of the army of the north, San Martin saw at once that all attempts to conquer Peru by an advance through Bolivia were foredoomed to failure. A campaign over a mountainous
