Andrés Avelino Cáceres

Andrés Avelino Cáceres

Andrés Avelino Cáceres Dorregaray (* 10. November 1836 in Ayacucho ; † 10. October 1923 in Lima ) was twice president of Peru , from 1886 to 1890 and from 1894 to 1895. He is considered the Peruvian national hero, because as a general of the Peruvian army to Led resistance to the Chilean occupation during the Saltpeter War from 1879 to 1883.

Life

Early years

Andrés Avelino Cáceres was born on November 10, 1836 (according to other sources in 1833) in the city of Ayacucho. His father, Domingo Cáceres, was a landowner and his mother, Justa Dorregaray, was a housewife. Cáceres attended the Colegio San Ramón in his hometown.

Beginnings of the military career

In 1854, Cáceres dropped out and joined the Ayacucho battalion as a cadet . As a battalion member, he took part in the rebellion of General Ramón Castilla against President José Rufino Echenique , which ended on January 5th, 1855 with Castilla's victory in the Battle of La Palma.

Cáceres rose to the rank of sub-lieutenant that same year and was promoted to lieutenant in 1857 . Between 1857 and 1859 he supported the Ramón Castilla government against a rebellion led by former President Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco . During a fight, Cáceres suffered a serious wound in his left eye.

War against Ecuador

When war broke out between Peru and Ecuador in 1859 , Cáceres was still struggling with his eye wound. Nevertheless, he took part in the campaigns. After the conflict ended in 1860, Castilla sent Cáceres to France as a military attaché , where his eye could also be treated. Cáceres returned to Peru in 1862 and joined the Pichincha battalion in Huancayo .

Peruvian-Spanish War

In the following years, Cáceres became known in the country for his open opposition to President Juan Antonio Pezet , who in 1865 had allowed the Spanish occupation of the Chincha Islands in the Vivanco-Pareja Agreement . Because of this criticism, Cáceres had to leave his home country together with other military officers and go into exile in Chilean. However, together with the other exiles, he managed to escape to the southern Peruvian port city of Mollendo .

The group joined the Revolución Restauradora del Honor Nacional (Revolution to Restore National Honor) under Mariano Ignacio Prado against Pezet's rule. Cáceres was involved in the capture of Lima and later, under Prado as president, in the battle of Callao on May 2, 1866, which led to the withdrawal of the Spanish Navy from Peruvian waters and the Chincha Islands.

Supporters of President Manuel Pardo y Lavalle

In 1868, Cáceres decided to end his military career and return to Ayacucho. Four years later, however, he re-entered the political scene as an opponent of Tomás Gutierrez's coup against President Manuel Pardo y Lavalle . Pardo was the first civilian to serve as president and founder of the influential Partido Civil .

Thanks to his support for President Pardo, Cáceres won the favor of the leadership of the Partido Civil. He was promoted to head of the Zepita battalion. In this role he ended a rebellion in Moquegua led by the future President Nicolás de Piérola , which earned him promotion to colonel and later prefect of Cusco .

Saltpeter War (1879–1883)

Fight in southern Peru

Right at the beginning of the Saltpeter War on April 5, 1879, Cáceres and his troops were ordered to the province of Tarapacá . There he fought against the Chilean army in the battles of San Francisco and Tarapacá. In the Battle of Tarapacá, his use was decisive for the victory of the Peruvians despite numerical inferiority to the Chileans.

Despite this victory, the Peruvian army failed to prevent the Chilean invasion. The army had to withdraw north to the province of Tacna . Chilean troops then landed in Ilo further north and attacked the Peruvian positions from there.

Cáceres took a leading role in reorganizing the Peruvian army in the south. The troops were in position around the city of Tacna and were supported by a Bolivian army under the leadership of the Bolivian President himself, General Narciso Campero . However , the instability caused by Nicolás de Piérola's takeover made the situation of the armed forces allied against the Chileans difficult.

On May 26, 1880, the army of Chile defeated the Bolivian-Peruvian troops in the Battle of Alto de la Alianza. Cáceres withdrew to Lima .

Battle for Lima

Chilean units in the Battle of San Juan.

Piérola ordered the remnants of the army to defend the capital Lima, where they were supported by only moderately armed citizens. Cáceres received the leadership of the fifth reserve division . Against the Chilean units advancing from the south, the weakened Peruvians suffered further defeats in the battles of San Juan and Miraflores . Cáceres was wounded in Miraflores and taken to Lima. When the city fell in January 1881, he fled to Jauja (city) in the mountainous Peruvian hinterland.

La Breña

As the highest ranking officer in the region, Cáceres was appointed political and military commander of the central provinces on April 26, 1881. He dedicated himself to the organization of the resistance against the Chilean occupiers and organized a guerrilla war of the rural population. Due to the local support, the difficult terrain and his own military skills, Cáceres defeated several Chilean military expeditions in the battles of Pucará (February 1882), Marcavalle and Pucará again (July 1882) and finally Concepción.

Because of his success he was nicknamed Brujo de los Andes (Magician of the Andes). On July 10, 1883, the outnumbered, but better equipped and trained Chileans achieved a decisive victory over Cáceres in the Battle of Huamachuco, not least because Cáceres had failed to provide his troops with sufficient ammunition. Although Cáceres tried to rearrange the units, a new Peruvian government under Miguel Iglesias conceded defeat in the Treaty of Ancón .

First Presidency (1886–1890)

Cáceres as President

After the end of the war, Cáceres refused to recognize Iglesias as president, triggering a civil war. Cáceres evaded the enemy army and attacked Lima on November 28, 1885, so that Iglesias had to declare his resignation on December 12 of the same year. The land was administered by a council of ministers under Antonio Arenas while new elections were held. Cáceres stood as the only candidate and was elected as the new president on June 3, 1886 .

The new government faced a severe economic crisis due to high debts and war damage. The Cáceres government therefore entered into negotiations with the lenders. With the Grace Treaty of October 28, 1888, the Peruvian state transferred control of the country's railways, granted a guano concession, guaranteed payments over a period of 33 years, and granted other smaller concessions to the lenders. In return, they undertook to take over the national debt and expand the rail network.

The Grace Treaty was highly controversial within Peru. The Cáceres government has been charged with selling off Peru's property for a ridiculous price. Nevertheless, the agreement helped the government to resolve the foreign debt problem and secure the expansion of the rail network, even though it had almost no funds at its disposal.

Under Cáceres' presidency, banknotes were also abolished as a means of payment, the budgets of the central government and the provinces were separated, and the state's domestic debt was reduced. After Remigio Morales Bermúdez had won the presidential election on April 13, 1890 as the official candidate, Cáceres handed over the presidency to his successor on August 10 of the same year.

Second Presidency (1894–1895)

Morales Bermúdez died in office on April 1, 1894 and was replaced by his Vice President Justiniano Borgoño . Cáceres won the following presidential election. Although he was accused of electoral fraud, he took up his second term as president on August 10, 1894 .

In large parts of the country rebellions broke out, which eventually came together under the leadership of former President Nicolás de Piérola. Rebel forces attacked Lima on March 17, 1895. A ceasefire was agreed two days later under the auspices of the Diplomatic Corps. Due to his defeat and lack of popularity, Cáceres resigned and transferred power to an interim government.

Late years

After his resignation, Cáceres lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 1895 to 1899 . He returned to Peru for a few years and then became Peru's ambassador in Europe, first in Italy (1905–1911) and then in the German Empire (1911–1914). When he returned to Lima, he supported the presidential campaign of Augusto B. Leguía and then his coup d'état against José Pardo y Barreda in 1919. The Leguías government elevated him to the rank of marshal on November 10, 1919 . Cáceres died in Lima on October 10, 1923 .

family

Aurora Cáceres (1877-1958), a daughter of Cáceres', became a well-known writer.

Afterlife

Andrés Avelino Cáceres is considered an icon of nationalism in Peru. His person symbolizes the resistance against foreign powers, since he fought against the Spanish occupation of the Chincha Islands and in particular led the fight against Chile, the former hereditary enemy.

More recently, the Etnocacerism movement referred to Cáceres. In the early years of this party, she was the determining force within the Partido Nacionalista Peruano .

literature

• Jorge Basadre Grohmann : Historia de la República del Perú . Editorial Universitaria, Lima 1983.
• Alberto Tauro del Pino: Enciclopedia Ilustrada del Perú . Peisa, Lima 2003.

Web links

Commons : Andrés Avelino Cáceres  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Andrés Avelino Cáceres Military Museum
• Biography of the Peruvian Army
• Biography from Biografias y Vidas (spanish)
• Biography on Ayacucho's website (Spanish)
• Texts from twelve speeches and other documents (Spanish)